Metroid: Destiny
by ZenWriterZero
Summary: Who pulled the strings behind the experiments at BSL? Samus becomes engulfed in a hunt unlike any other. On the hunt for the masterminds, she accepts help from a strange assassin. Who says he knows who it is she's hunting. He's hunted them for years.
1. Trial

Disclaimer: I do not own Metroid or anything associated with it. Though I do wish I owned a Chozo Power Suit. That would be freaking sweet! I know the ideas for this story have probably been done at least a dozen times. But I still want to try my hand at this story. Besides, the ideas that I have just won't get out of my head unless I write them out. Please read and review and give me constructive (not abusive) critiques. This is just the first chapter to set the story. The action will heat up next chapter, I promise. Enjoy the story!

Metroid: Destiny

"Someone will understand. Someone must." These were the words that her computerized former CO had told her after the destruction of the Biological Space Laboratories station in orbit of planet

SR-388. The necessary destruction that prevented the lethal X Parasite from spreading throughout the galaxy.

_However,_ reflected Samus Aran as she sat in the courtroom facing a military tribunal and being charged with dereliction of duty, if not borderline _treason_ against the Galactic Federation. _So far it seems we have not yet found someone who would understand. Instead we seem to be finding more and more people who are the exact opposite._

The general in charge of the tribunal sat down and brought his hammer down to signal silence in the courtroom. Clearing his throat gruffly, he fixed Samus with a glare and began.

"Samus Aran. You are hereby charged with treason against the Galactic Federation for the destruction of the BSL station and valuable research materials that would have greatly benefited the Federation had you not done so. How do you plead?"

Samus took a deep breath. This was new territory for her. And she briefly wondered why she had even let herself get cornered into this situation.

_Because I didn't have much of a choice. _She thought irritably. After the BSL incident, she had decided she needed to take a break. She had spent almost two days crawling around that station being an exterminator of the X parasite in its many nightmarish forms while playing cat and mouse with the SA-X. Then there was the whole revelation of the experiments the Federation were conducting with cloned Metroids, a sight she thought she would _never_ see again. And their desires to use the X for military applications. After all that, yeah she needed a break.

But she had barely gotten three hours away from SR-388 when the Federation found her and ordered her to surrender quietly. She considered running, but since the ship she used for the BSL incident was a Federation ship, it apparently had a master code that the Federation used to usurp control of the ship from her. Something else she was unaware the Federation could do.

After they did that, Adam counseled her to surrender peacefully. If she didn't, things would just get uglier and things were already pretty hideous.

The only thing she had been allowed to do after she surrendered was go check in with the medical bay. She was curious as to how her condition was now that she had essentially absorbed herself as she was prior to her surgery. She shivered a little at the memory of her fight with the SA-X. It really was like fighting a mirror. And she thought Dark Samus was bad.

Fortunately, the scans showed she was back to normal. Which was a relief. Her power suit was even starting to regain its metal plating. It should also be back to normal in a day or two.

But for now, she stood up answered the general's glare with her own and curtly declared, "not guilty, sir."

She put as much disdain into the "sir" as she could. There were very few general's that she actually liked. None of which were here of course.

Over the next several hours, Samus defended herself from the accusations of several executives from BSL, from several military commanders and scientists who headed the project.

She almost laughed when one of the BSL scientists stated that the safeguards they had installed were "full proof and perfect." She then proceeded to remind everyone of how the SA-X completely demolished all of their precious safeguards. Citing how dangerous she herself was at full strength and reminding everyone of her record as a hunter. Apparently, some people need reminding of when you've blown entire planets up.

The general looked over some notes. "It says here that over the course of your assignment at BSL, you disengaged the lockdown in several sections of the station thus allowing, purposely _allowing_ the X parasite to infest these new sections. How do you answer to this?"

Samus was unperturbed. Adam had mentioned that this might come up. "I needed to access those sections in order to download vital weapons data to my suit to continue my extermination of the X parasite. As well as to access some of the more deadly specimens and eliminate them."

"Hmm, I see. Well let's confirm that shall we? Bring Adam Malkovitch to the stand please."

Samus looked around. Two guards brought in what looked like a small hoversled with a computer core on it. It was rather odd to know that her former CO, someone she had greatly respected, was now essentially inside that core. After a minute, they hooked up the core to some new equipment and a holographic projection of Adam's head flickered into existence.

"Colonel Malkovitch, you are current on the proceedings of this tribunal?"

Even with only a head, Adam seemed to be able to have perfect military posture. "I am, sir."

"Then please confirm why Ms Aran allowed the X to infest the BSL station even further."

"At the time, her recovery of all the abilities she had lost was the mission's top priority. Those were my orders. Allowing the X to spread to sealed sections was unfortunate but necessary. Which is all rather moot at this point because the entire station was destroyed. May we get back to what this case is really about instead of having you try to make Samus look bad?"

The general looked like he had swallowed poison. Samus allowed herself a small smirk at the general's expense.

The general tried to recover some control. "No one is trying to make the defendant look bad. We are all just trying to get to the truth…"

"And the truth is," Adam interrupted. "Is that in a way Samus _is _guilty. She did ignore orders and she did go against the orders of the Federation."

_There better be more Adam or I will drop you out an airlock. _Samus thought.

"But in doing so, she saved all of us. The X were far too dangerous to let live. The risks they posed far outweighed any benefits they would have yielded. So in disobeying orders, she did her duty. To herself, to the military and to the people of the Federation. And that is why I also disobeyed my orders. So we can dispense with questioning me."

The general was livid. "You are out of line _Colonel!"_

Adam's holographic eyes glared at the general. "No _we _were out of line general!"

The tribunal went on for several more hours. The general, General Johnson, she later learned, seemed to want to wear everyone down using the stifling heat, boredom and stagnation that seemed to permeate the atmosphere of the courtroom.

But eventually, even General Johnson admitted that they needed to adjourn for the day. So he had guards escort her back to her cell and had Adam put into some sort of storage room.

Once in her cell, Samus let out a sigh. The trial had started early in the morning and ended around midnight. It was not the most tiring experience she ever had but it did seem mentally exhausting.

All those people in that courtroom seemed convinced that Samus had done the wrong thing. Were they all stupid? She wondered in frustration. Did they really think that studying the X could lead to great things? None of them even _considered_ giving her the benefit of the doubt. Resigning herself she laid down on her cot and looked up at the blank ceiling. _It wasn't a complete loss today._ She decided. Despite never having been on trial before, she thought she presented herself rather well. And Adam may as well have been her lawyer with the speech he gave. It seemed impossible that they could imprison her after that.

But then again, it had also seemed impossible to ever encounter metroids again. That had been proven wrong, courtesy of the Federation.

Deciding to try and not worry about it. Samus closed her eyes. She needed to be rested for when they decided to give out her verdict. And hey, if worse came to worse and they did decide to imprison her, she could always escape and go on the run. Not an appealing option, spending her life on the run but possible.

Oddly enough, she thought back to the Phazon Crisis. Something a fellow bounty hunter, Rundus she remembered, said once.

"Hey, relax! We're the good guys. Justice will prevail and all that stuff…right Samus?"

She chuckled. She really wished she had gotten to know those hunters better instead of having to kill them all. On the other hand, in light of how she had to kill them, it really was good that she didn't know them that well. She shelved the thought for another time. She had mourned already, she didn't need to mourn for them any longer. All she needed to do was to fall asleep.

But as she fell asleep, she pondered over Rundus' words. Her last thought as she fell asleep was if only the galaxy really was that simple.


	2. Assassins

Disclaimer: Still don't own Metroid. I know I haven't really done much characterization so far, I hope to remedy that next chapter. As always please read and review. Thank you and enjoy! Chapter two, the conspiracy begins…

Metroid: Destiny

_Undisclosed location._

It was a dark room with no furniture and no furnishings. The only thing that stood out about this room was the table in the center of it. A table that had twelve seats.

One by one, holographic displays on each of the chairs activated. Each one revealed an immaculately dressed person who obviously had known financial wealth for all of their life. When all the projectors were online, they revealed a rather conformist group. There were nine humans, all elderly. But their eyes seemed sharp and shifty. Among the humans only two of them were female. As for the other three beings, they were aliens from different planets. But one thing each of these aliens had in common, was that they belonged to species that were believed to be highly influential within the Federation.

"So then," one of the elderly humans began. "It's been awhile since all of us were gathered."

"Indeed. The last time we met together, was during the Phazon Crisis some time ago. That entire fiasco was a disaster. I still grieve that we were unable to find a way to produce our own Phazon after the destruction of Phaaze."

One of the aliens cleared their throats. "No use in dwelling on past failures. We have far more current matters to discuss. The incident at the BSL station with Samus Aran. The loss of the data on that station could set us back months in our research."

"And then there's the real issue at hand. What do we do with Samus Aran? She's seen too much," one of the females spoke up.

"That depends. How is her trial going?"

"Despite the fact that we've packed the court against her, she has presented herself well. No matter how angry the jury is at her actions, its doubtful they could forget her accomplishments of the past. General Johnson believes the best they could do is a slap on the wrist sentence wise. At least we can be thankful that the trial is secret and that the public does not know of these events."

"However, there are many reporters who suspect something has happened. Its only a matter of time before the news about her trial leaks."

"In that case, we'll have to remove Aran quickly. Using alternative means."

Everybody at the table knew what that meant. But even they were prepared to admit that it sounded foolhardy. Assassinating the galaxy's greatest hunter. Could it be done?

"Are the new X series operational yet?"

"They won't be for another month. Their augmentations need time to finalize. But we still have some of the older X series. And we have this." With that, the table lit up to reveal a holographic display of what looked to be medical records.

"Are these the scans of Samus Aran? "

"Yes. Taken from when she went to a medical examination before her incarceration. They tell us that despite absorbing the core of an SA-X, and being restored to how she was before the vaccine injection, her DNA still retains traces of Metroid DNA. In essence, she is still part Metroid and barring extensive gene therapy, she always will be."

"But she can use her ice beam, she doesn't have the weakness to the cold."

"Correct. But she could still absorb X parasites. The traces are minute but still there. The doctor in charge of her examination was one of ours so he managed to keep this information from her. Which may give us an opportunity."

Another projection rose up from the table.

"This is data taken from Space Pirates during the Phazon Crisis. This data gives information about certain sound frequencies that can pacify metroids. We think it may be able to disorient Samus. Rendering her vulnerable. Not to mention we have several new technologies that…"

"Fascinating," drawled another in a bored tone. "We don't care how its done as long as its done. Are your plans in place?"

" A group of the older X series are en route to her as we speak. By this time tomorrow, Samus Aran will be dead."

One of the aliens sighed. "It's a shame. She was useful."

"Was being the operative word. And don't forget, everyone involved with her trial needs to meet 'an unfortunate accident' as well. The fewer people who know of this the better. Now then, onto other matters, are the specimens safely away?"

"Yes. We've had some trouble transporting the X parasites as they don't seem to have any weaknesses aside from metroids. But for the most part, things have gone smoothly. The metroid clones are very easy to transport once you have the right equipment. And thanks to all the data we have on metroids, we expect our research will be on track shortly."

Another one shook his head. "You know, we may have to rename the X series in light of the discovery of the X parasite."

"I'm already working on it. I'm thinking of going with Talon series or Gryphon series."

"Heh, the most powerful people in the Federation, the ones who truly rule the galaxy, and here we are thinking of new names for our personal assassins."

This old figure leaned forward out of the darkness. Revealing a grizzled old face with two large horizontal scars going across his face just above his nose. "Laugh if you will, but I take matters dealing with our assassins very seriously. It's mostly my money that's responsible for training and augmenting them. Neither of which are cheap."

"Is there anything else to discuss?"

"Nothing that's pertinent. We'll meet again tomorrow if there are any new developments."

"In that case…"The other female member of the group who had been silent for most of the meeting, raised a glass of champagne.

"…To the end of Samus Aran. Her chapter closes so that a new chapter for the Federation can begin."

_Planet Daiban._

_The trial of Samus Aran._

Samus had to say, she was feeling much better after a rest. And judging by the sour look on General Johnson's face, the sentence from her trial shouldn't be too bad for her.

General Johnson once again banged the hammer as a call to order.

"Order in the court. Samus Aran, for the destruction of Federation property and research, this tribunal finds you guilty."

She calmed herself. Adam said that this was what would most likely happen.

"Your _sentence,"_ he growled out obviously displeased. "Is a two month house arrest. You are forbidden to be within 15 kilometers of a starport. You are not to leave an area of 50 kilometers around your…" he glanced at some notes. "new apartment building in district 43. You will wear a tracking anklet. Any violation of your sentence will result in immediate incarceration. Do you understand?"

Samus was a bit surprised that she had her own apartment now. These terms did seem good…possibly too good. _But I suppose I'll just need to keep my guard up. _"Yes sir. I understand."

"Then this trial is concluded," and he brought the hammer down one final time.

After she was fitted with her new anklet, she caught a hovercab to district 43. _Well that went easier than expected. It only took a lot of waiting and a trial that took the entire day. Something doesn't seem right at all._

Call it being paranoid, but her Chozo teachers had said that once you develop your instincts, you can trust them. She had developed her own instincts over the course of countless battles, and they hadn't led her astray yet.

Luckily, she still had her zero suit. As long as she had that, she could summon her power suit in the blink of an eye.

The ride to district 43 was surprisingly short. However as she looked out at the district, she began to think that her tribunal judges were petty sadists. It was a district that was still under construction. Her own apartment was right next to one that they were still building. Even now, she could see the workers packing up their equipment for the day. When morning came around the noise was going to drive her insane. She was sure of it.

_Oh well. At least it's secluded. _She was fond of her solitude. It made things simple. And right now, she just wanted a little simplicity again. But for now, she had to think about her future plans.

They didn't revoke her hunters license. Which was very good. She was still a hunter. So after her two months were up she could go back to work. She wondered if she should try to get Adam back. Her distaste for taking orders aside, he was pretty useful. And she wasn't sure if she could just let the Federation keep him. After the way they had shattered her trust, it was going to take a lot on their part to regain it.

As she entered her apartment, she took note of just exactly how empty it was. They had provided her with a bed and a refrigerator. She would have to stock up on other things with her own money. Fortunately, she always put some money away for emergencies.

She was suddenly feeling very tired as she walked toward the bed. Tired and perhaps a bit dizzy…

Her eyes widened as she realized the trap had been sprung. She quickly engaged her power suit, and it began to spread over her body. But then some sort of laser hit her as she was halfway through the process. And something that shouldn't have been possible happened. Her suit essentially fizzed and winked out of existence.

The badge on her zero suit started blinking and gave off a warning tone. She was shocked to say the least. As far as she understood it, she donned her suit through some sort of energy to matter conversion process. Whoever was attacking her, they had somehow managed to disrupt that process. And she doubted she would be able to use her power suit immediately after something like that happened.

Her instincts took over. She couldn't fight so she had to escape. The window seemed like her best bet, she could survive falls that most people couldn't even without her suit. But as she made her way to the window, waves of nausea and vertigo rose up in her body making her stumble. It was then she noticed a ringing in her ears.

_Sound waves…disorienting…got to get away…_

Her assailants chose that moment to reveal themselves. There were five of them, all human. But wearing completely black power suits of a design that she had never seen before. The design appeared blocky, but did not restrict movement. But what really caught her attention were the helmets.

Instead of a blank visor, the face of each of the helmets literally had a face on it. Each face was exactly the same, it looked like the face of an ancient human statue carved out of gleaming obsidian.

One of her assassins walked over to her. She threw a punch as hard as she could, but the disorientation was too much. She ended up taking out one of the walls in her apartment. Which gave her an idea. She raised her fist and she punched through the floor of her apartment. She was on the third floor of the building, maybe she could get away from the sound emitters and escape. But as soon as she fell through the assassins followed her and noise that was hindering her didn't lessen at all.

_The emitters are in their suits! _She realized. The assassins acted quickly, they surrounded her and the combined noise brought Samus to her knees.

_Damn it! No way out._ Her strength completely left her and the ringing in her ears grew unbearable. She grit her teeth. _Not yet! This can't end here! _Ever the fighter, Samus still tried to get up and fight. Ignoring the agony in her brain that caused her nose to bleed.

But it was over. The assassin in front of her raised his weapon. A Space Pirate weapon she realized. Were these assassins going to frame the pirates for her death? Who were they anyway?

As the weapon powered up with a soft electric whine, she glared at the mask of her killer, unflinching and unafraid. She gathered the last of her strength for one last punch…

Only to have the weapon suddenly be yanked by some unseen force toward the assassin on her left as it fired.

She didn't wait around to find out what happened. She launched herself at the assassin in front of her and hit him in the face with all her might.

The assassin was literally propelled about 2 meters into the air. A normal person would have completely shattered their hand after such a blow, but Chozo blood did wonders for the body, she'd have a lovely bruise on her hand for a day or two, but nothing was broken.

She didn't look back she just stumbled forward. Grabbing the assassin she had punched and used him as a shield against the assassins behind her.

Good thing too, because they started shooting at her as soon as she was on the move. She knew looking back would be foolish and could cost her life, but when she started hearing thumps and yells of pain she couldn't help it.

There was a sixth man in the fray. His armor was identical to that of the other assassins but looked more advanced, more streamlined.

And it had claws.

Two wicked looking curved and serrated claws on the underside of the wrist that this new arrival used to carve into his opponents. He had easily taken three down and was now fighting with the fourth.

Speaking of which, the assassin she was using as a meatshield was beginning to come to. She found what looked like a release on the helmet. She pressed it and the helmet fell away.

Her would be killer must have gotten an idea of what Samus was about to do and tried using his suits strength to stop her. But it was too late. She grabbed his head and broke his neck with a quick twist. The sickening _crack_ was both gratifying and nauseating.

But before she could take stock of the new arrival and perhaps shake off the effects of the sound waves, her supposed rescuer suddenly tackled her and jumped through the window.

She would have tried to fight this new development had it not been for the sudden explosion that leveled the building.

The force of the blast hit them like a freight train and sent them plummeting toward the ground even faster. Her unknown benefactor managed to stick the landing, rather impressive all things considered.

Then he proceeded to let her down gently and turned to look at the ruined apartment building.

Samus for her part, took the time to catch her breath and clear her head. With the sound emitters destroyed, the ringing in her ears was starting to subside and the pain was lessening by the second.

As she stayed there she regarded the one who had rescued her. He…or at least she was pretty sure he was a he judging by what she could tell of his physique and the way he held himself…seemed to be scanning the area for something. She could only guess what it was he was looking for, but he must have found it because then he suddenly yanked her onto her feet.

"We need to go, now!" definitely a male voice beneath the layers of electronic distortion his helmet provided.

But Samus wasn't sold just yet.

"Who are you?"

He gave a light chuckle. "Hell, with the mess you've gotten yourself into, I'm the closest thing to a guardian angel you have. We'll get to the introductions later. For now, we have to get out of here."


	3. Introductions

Disclaimer: Still don't own Metroid. This chapter was a little hard to write for some reason. And honestly, I still don't think I'm quite happy with it. Oh well, y'all know the drill. Please read and review. Oh and for future notice, I may bump the rating up to M, for violence and language just so you know. But for now, enjoy!

Metroid: Destiny

_Planet Daiban,_

Her new associate had taken off her tracking anklet and threw it into the inferno that had previously been her apartment. He then proceeded to lead her through the streets and back alleys of Daiban at a breakneck pace. Whoever this guy was he was definitely fast, but Samus was still able to easily keep up with him.

They ran for about an hour, not bothering to slow down once. Her mysterious benefactor seemed to try and select routes where they wouldn't be seen by many people. However even if people did catch sight of them, they were running so fast that they may as well have been blurs of black and blue.

Finally, when they reached another dark and deserted alley, he finally stopped. Still keeping his back to Samus, his armor proceeded to open at some unseen signal.

Unlike her own armor, his seemed to be operated purely on mechanical basis. Servos and locking mechanisms unlocked and pulled apart, allowing the suits occupant to simply walk out of it while the suit itself curled into a small fetal position. Giving Samus her first view of her rescuer.

The first thing she noticed was that he was tall, about six centimeters taller than her. He was wearing what looked like his own form of her zero suit except his was black. His frame was lean but she could see that it was also very muscular. Suggesting an intense training regimen.

From what she could see from the back, his hair was brown. But this observation might not mean much because next he pulled out a strange looking comb and as he ran it through his hair, it turned black.

Samus was a bit surprised by what this meant. That comb was a nano comb. It was laced with special nanites that could be programmed to reflect different wavelengths of light. Thus making hair seem a different color than it actually was. They were outlawed to the general public some time ago on the basis that a criminal could easily change his appearance in the blink of an eye. Now they were usually used by undercover police forces and were very difficult to obtain otherwise.

The surprise didn't end there either, next he grabbed a small container of some sort and applied some sort of gel like substance it to his face. When he finally turned to face her, she watched as the gel on his face expanded and morphed into different facial features.

Her eyes widened a fraction. Nano facial reconstruction gel, or nano putty as it was called on the streets, allowed the wearer to morph their facial features into any form programmed into the nanites. Providing an excellent disguise that felt like actual flesh to the touch. Possession of this gel was _extremely_ illegal.

When the gel finished morphing, into strong features that suited a man about ten years older than her, the man blinked. She had managed to catch a glimpse of eyes as blue as the sea, but when he blinked his eyes had changed to green, then red, then grey before he finally seemed to settle on hazel.

Optical implants as well. Those were illegal _and_ expensive. Whoever this guy was, Samus decided, he was deadly, well equipped, and possibly paranoid judging by the lengths he went to conceal his face.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

He smirked. "Not yet time for introductions. Here put these on and use this," he handed her a bundle of clothes and the nano comb.

The clothes were just a baggy pair of pants, shoes and a long jacket. They seemed well worn and hardly fashionable, but they would cover Samus' zero suit perfectly. Realizing the need to not stand out, she quickly put them on. After she was done, she ran the nano comb through her hair. Turning her magnificent blonde hair into a dull brown with each swipe. By the time she was done, hardly anybody would have been able to recognize her as Samus Aran.

"Now will you tell me who you are?" she asked impatiently. One thing she hated, was being stringed along.

"First, you want to go grab a drink or something? My treat. I know this excellent bar just down the corner."

She glared pointedly. "Tell me who you are or I'll kick your ass and then leave."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Wow, I was under the impression that your were a bit more stoic."

"It's been a bad month. Now stop dodging the question. Who are you?"

The man looked thoughtful for a moment. "That's a good question actually, you can call me Zade. Its as good a name as any for me."

_But not your real name,_ Samus thought. "Who sent those assassins to try and kill me? Space Pirates?"

"Now this is a conversation that _really_ should be had over drinks."

Samus had had enough of this. She lashed out quickly with a right punch that this Zade person actually managed to dodge much to her surpise. He really was fast. She didn't let up though, she followed up with a rapid series of kicks that boxed Zade between the alley wall and her. Once he was cornered, she went in for the final strike to the solar plexus and grabbed him by the throat.

"Enough with the games! Tell me what I need to know _now_." Her tone of voice indicated that she was not interested in anything but answers.

But then she felt something cold against her own throat and glanced down to see Zade was holding a knife to her jugular.

_How did he conceal a knife in a suit like that? _She wondered momentarily before wondering if she could crush his neck before he slit hers.

"I'll let this go because I know your still on edge from the attempt on your life. Something tells me that your not used to being rescued from a situation where you were pretty much helpless."

She scowled. Loath as she was to admit it, he was right, she really was on edge. Against that surprise attack on her, she had been helpless to escape, much less fight. The last time she had been that helpless was…

She quickly shut down the memories of K-2L and returned to glaring at Zade.

Zade then dropped the knife that he was holding.

"Alright. I'll tell you what you want to know. Can you let go of me first though? Please?"

She did so. Zade rubbed his neck a bit. "Damn, you've got a hell of a grip that's for sure. Now let me get my own clothes on then walk with me and I'll tell you what I know."

He quickly donned some clothes and then turned to leave but Samus looked at the hunched form of the armor he had been wearing. Was he seriously just going to leave that there?

Almost as if reading her mind, he answered her question. "It has a security setting, I'll be back for it later. Now lets go."

They walked out into the streets. Their clothes easily making them blend in with the people who were around them.

After a few minutes of walking, Zade began. "What would you say if I told you, that the Galactic Federation, the largest government in the cosmos wasn't controlled by the Supreme Council? And that the entire Federation was really ruled by 12 individuals? Nine humans and three aliens. What would you say to all of that?"

"I'd say that's impossible. The Federation is too big to be ruled by just 12 people."

"Oh they don't completely rule. The various bits of actual government work is still done by the Supreme Council and their various offices and stuff. But 12 really do is they influence, they suggest, they coerce. They move the Federation along paths that they wish the Federation to go. Their influence and reach is the stuff of nightmares. Each individual has access to more money than a god would have. The number of officials and military officers they have in their pockets is probably equal to the number of stars in the sky."

"If what you're saying is true, and I'm not saying I believe you, why would they do this?"

"For power of course. These 12 believe that it's practically their right to decide how the Federation works. But they'll never actually come out and say that. No, they prefer to operate in the shadows. Using proxy agents to do their work. Never directly being involved in anything. Much like the experiments at BSL."

Samus' ears perked up at this. "So these 12 were behind the experiments at BSL? And they used the Federation to carry them out?"

"Not quite. From what I've been able to gather, various higher ups in the military are the ones who came up with the idea of cloning metroids and studying the X. The 12 just decided to lend their support and backed the project with enough funds to buy a planet. You should see the numbers, its obscene."

"Speaking of numbers. Why would these 12 people mostly be humans? Humans don't play a major role in politics."

"But they play a huge role in the Federation military. Think about it. Humans pretty much dominate the Federation Military. Alien governments seem to be ok with this as long as their own planets maintain their own local militia in case of invasions. At least that's my theory."

Samus was quiet for a moment. "And how do you know all of this?"

Zade sighed. "I'm sure you noticed the similarities between my armor and the armor of the gentlemen who visited your apartment."

Samus nodded. She had her suspicions.

"Well, those gentlemen who are now rotting in a well earned inferno are a side project of the 12. They're called the X series. And don't worry, they don't actually have anything to do with the X parasite," Zade reassured her as Samus had started to tense.

"What they really are, are personal assassins for the 12 to use as they like. Trained from the moment they hit the cradle, biologically augmented to the height of physical perfection, basically brainwashed into thinking that what they do helps the Federation and families everywhere. Then they're equipped with the most advanced stealth armor money can buy and sent to kill anyone the 12 deems an obstacle to their plans. Nice bunch after you get past all that."

Samus narrowed her eyes. "I doubt that you got your armor by stealing it from one of these X series. Those explosions in the apartment, those suits self destruct when their wearer is killed don't they?"

"Yep. But maybe I killed an X series and I'm just really good at disabling security measures. Thought the armor would make a nice souvenir"

Samus smirked.

"Hmph, Yeah I wouldn't believe that either. You're right. I was once in the employ of the 12. I was once an X series. Before I escaped at least. And now lets just say that the 12 owe me some sort of severance pay and leave it at that ok?"

_Sounds like he wants revenge. _Samus thought. _That's dangerous. _But even though warning bells were starting to stir in her mind Samus still had to be sure. "Why did you save me?"

"A guy can't rescue a pretty girl just because she's in trouble?"

"Save me the flattery and answer the question."

Zade took a left into a starport. After conversing with the attendant there, he walked down the lanes of ships with Samus in tow.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Samus gave him a look that _said I'm not going to let this go so you better just tell me before I punch you._

With a sigh, Zade answered the question. "Ok fine. I'll level with you. I've been hunting the 12 for years. _Years_. And my hunt has basically hit a dead end. Every time I get close to something that could lead me to them or bring them down, they snatch it right out of my hands. They've also been hunting me for a long time. Every time they get a whiff of me, they send in some X series. And let me tell you, those guys are not easy to beat when you don't get the drop on them."

He took a breath. "The hunt had stalled. But then I heard a rumor about the BSL incident. A rumor about how you destroyed that research station. I figured this would put you in the sights of the 12 and I was right. They've marked you for death Samus. They won't stop hunting you until you're dead. We've got a common enemy now. And who better to help me hunt the galaxy's most elusive prey, than the greatest hunter in the galaxy?"

_I knew it. Hmmm…_ Samus thought for a moment. If what this guy said was true, then it would appear that the galaxy had gone mad. A conspiracy behind the Federation? 12 people coercing and encouraging the Federation to pursue dangerous and foolhardy experiments? It seemed unlikely. But she couldn't discount how well equipped her assassins had been. So if this was true, then these 12 would have to be stopped before their influence started putting innocent lives at risk.

"Do you have any proof of this?" she asked.

They walked to a parked ship. It was about the same size as her old gunship. But more of a triangle shape similar to Sylux's Delano 7 and completely black as space itself.

"Are you in then?"

Samus considered. "Maybe, if you have enough intel on these so called 12."

"Follow me." A ramp lowered from the ship and they both boarded it.

The inside was surprisingly spacious, Samus noted. Complete with all the comforts a bounty hunter would need, along with enough weapons to fight a small war.

"Here." Zade handed her a small datapad. "This has everything from my investigation so far. Don't bother giving it to the Federation or to the media. I've tried that before and it did not work out well. A lot of people died. Besides, I doubt there's enough to actually bring them down."

Samus activated the data pad and briefly scrolled through it. There seemed to be a lot of data. She'd need time to go through it all.

"So what do you say? You want in on this hunt? Its your best chance at bringing them down before they bring you down."

Samus pondered this. On one hand, she could partner up with a former assassin she knew nothing about and didn't trust as far as she could throw him but who knew who these 12 were, how to find them and how to hunt them. But on the other hand, she had seen the rage in his eyes when he mentioned he worked for them once. She could tell that there was something desperate about his hunt, a _need _to find the 12. And she knew that getting caught up in someone's revenge held many dangers.

Besides, she worked alone.

"Thank you, but I work alone. I assume you have copies of this data? Because I'm taking this."

Zade smirked again, he seemed to like doing that. "That's a stupid move on your part. These are not opponents you're used to, and by tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to sick the entire Federation on you. What then? Will you take on the whole galaxy? Will you kill Federation troops?"

She pocketed the datapad. "What I'll do is none of your business. Goodbye."

She turned and exited the ship without another word. She decided that she may need to find some new clothes, just in case he had laced them with any tracking devices. She wouldn't put it past a guy like him.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Zade was rubbing where Samus had almost choked him absentmindedly.

"Interesting. I wonder…" then he shrugged and picked up a new datapad. When he turned it on, data on dozens of tracking devices he had put on Samus immediately popped up on the screen. She would probably find most of them, and get rid of them, but he was confident she wouldn't find _all_ of them.

"You didn't think I was going to let you go that easily did you Samus?"

He smiled in triumph. But that smile quickly gave way to a pained gasp as he doubled over and clamped a hand over his heart and started breathing heavily.

_Damn it! Its happening more and more often. At this rate…" _He shook that thought out of his mind. He would find the 12, before that happened. He was sure of it.

Once the pain had subsided, he slowly rose and picked up the dropped datapad. She had managed to find five of the more obvious tracking beacons and even one of the beacons she _wasn't _supposed to find.

But that didn't matter to Zade, he wouldn't lose his best chance at finding the 12. Not when he was so close now.

_Sorry Samus. _He thought vaguely. _But I simply can't afford to let you go it on your own. Too much is at stake for me, so for the foreseeable future, sorry to say but your stuck with me baby. _

Thinking of their first encounter, Zade briefly wondered who would wind up killing him first, the 12 or Samus Aran?

_Either way, this is getting interesting. _

With a confident smirk, Zade quickly donned a new disguise. Darkening the nano putty on his face to make him more tanned and changing his eyes to blue before putting on a more stylish outfit and pasting on a mustache. Satisfied with his new appearance, he picked up his datapad, and left the ship. On the way out of the spaceport, he passed the real owner of the ship he had just vacated. A man who had features perfectly identical to the disguise Zade was wearing when he met Samus. He was a weapons dealer Zade had managed to find. When he found the man's ship, he had helped himself to some food and weapons for his real ship and rearranged the interior to make it look more like a bounty hunters' ship. And also took the liberty of leaving a little gift for the real owner...

Zade had just exited the starport when he heard the sound of an explosion as well as the screams of panic that always followed.

With a grimly satisfied smile, Zade ignored the throngs of people running past him to see what happened. And walked into the city night to shadow the greatest hunter in the galaxy.

One way or another, the hunt had begun.


	4. Plans

Disclaimer, I don't own Metroid, but I do own your soul! Muhahahahaha! Actually I think I lost that in a legal fight. So no I don't own your soul. I would really appreciate some reviews. So please read, review and above all, enjoy!

Metroid: Destiny

_Undisclosed location._

The room was as silent and dark as a graveyard at night. However that changed in an instant when the 12 holograms flickered into existence. The meeting began without any preamble.

"What happened! Did Samus manage to kill our assassins?"

The man with the scarred face cleared his throat. "Our X series almost had Samus, but there was an unexpected development in the operation."

"What kind of development?"

The scarred man took a breath and seemed to brace himself. "At the moment of termination, subject XM-25 appeared on the scene and saved the target."

The effect of those words was instantaneous. Every last person at that table was in an uproar over those words.

"Damn him! That bastard is relentless!"

"How is that possible? Our last report of him said he was hiding out somewhere in the Kriken Empire. That report was two days ago! There isn't a ship in the galaxy that can get from there to Daiban in just two days!"

The yelling continued for several moments before they finally calmed down.

When it did, clearer heads started the conversation. "His involvement is unfortunate and will make things more difficult for us. No doubt he has given Samus information regarding our existence. She'll be on our trail now."

"Forget about Samus! What are we going to do about XM-25? He's been a thorn in our side for too long. He needs to die!"

One of the aliens tried to calm the man down."Relax. We…"

"Do not tell me to relax!" the man who was voicing his dissent leapt up from his chair. Making his hologram stand up.

"Has he cost _you_ billions in credits? Has he nearly _ruined_ your entire financial empire? It took me months, _months! _To recover from what he did! Do not tell me to relax you…!"

The scarred man flipped a switch that emitted a loud pounding noise. Like a hammer being slammed down in a court room.

"Silence!" the normally soft spoken scarred man shouted.

That quieted down the room considerably. Everyone looked at the scarred man as his hologram leaned forward. Show casing his scars to everyone in the room.

"Do you know why I keep these scars? When reconstructive surgery could easily get rid of them?"

No one answered.

"I keep them to remind me of what exactly XM-25 is capable of, so that I never underestimate him again. That being said, Leonard." He turned to regard the man who had gone on his tirade.

"We need to keep calm. We cannot allow personal vendettas to cloud our better judgment. That's a weakness, a weakness XM-25 will happily exploit. But…"

He turned to the alien, his reptilian form concealed by the shadows. "…we can not simply 'relax' as you said, Che Seda, Even a moment of complacency is something XM-25 could use."

Leonard, who was not happy with having his name revealed, glared at the scarred man. "Well then, since you are the expert who helped train XM-25 when he was still an X series, what do _you_ propose we do? Oh wise military man," he added spitefully.

"Simple. Allow me to handle him. I know him. I know how he operates. I'll have the X series hunt him down. With my guidance and intel, they'll find him."

"What about Samus then?"

This time, the scarred man smirked. "XM-25 didn't save Samus out of the goodness of his heart. He thinks he can use her to cause us some damage. Where she goes, he'll follow. Find either one of them, and you'll find both. They'll show themselves eventually, so finding them won't be a problem. It's killing them that will take some effort."

"I take it you have plans in mind?"

"Yes I do actually. Something I think you will all approve of."

"Before you explain there's something I want to ask," the other alien, spoke up. "Regarding XM-25's…unique condition. What do we know of it?"

"Honestly? Not much. His last medical scans were from the day he escaped. We have no idea how his condition may have changed over the past few years."

"What about replicating his condition? Have we had any luck with that?"

"We've pretty much abandoned trying to replicate the results of XM-25's experimentation. He was the only one of 50 X series who survived the procedure. Since then, we've used dozens of X series trying the exact same process we used on XM-25 with no success. We've even taken to finding people on the street and capturing them for the experiment. We used over a thousand beings from different planets, even using gene therapy to rewrite their DNA to be more similar to XM-25 before trying the procedure. No success. It seems XM-25 was just a fluke."

"It seems for all our power, we can't control the dice of fate," Che Seda said thoughtfully.

The other alien shrugged. "Shame, but with our research we should have a breakthrough eventually."

"Back to more pressing matters. What is your plan for finding Samus and XM-25?"

The scarred man pressed a button and video footage burst into existence above the table.

"Oh nice. Very nice, we approve indeed."

"With this, the entire Federation will go after Samus. Excellent!"

"Is there anything else that we need to discuss? Or are we done here?"

One of the women spoke up. "The subjects have reached our laboratory's safely. Our research will commence shortly."

Che Seda nodded. "Good. Then we will leave the hunt for Samus and XM-25 in your capable hands," he nodded toward the scarred man. "Keep us all informed."

With that, all 12 holographic displays winked off and the room regained its silent and dark state. But only for a moment.

Two of the 12 holographs came back on. Revealing the scarred man and the younger of the two women.

She spoke first. "You're up to something aren't you Jonathan."

The scarred man, Jonathan, smiled grimly. "How can you tell, Allison?"

"Because I know you. Or at least I know you as well as anyone can these days."

Jonathan just blinked. "And if I was up to something, what would you do?"

Her answer had just the right amount of pause in it to be believable. "I'd support you of course. You know that I hate that group of pompous swine as much as you do."

"There's nothing you can do at the moment. But if something comes up, I will tell you. Now we must go before the others find out."

With that, Jonathan switched his holograph off. Allison sighed and followed the action.

Back on his home planet, Jonathan idly traced his scars, mementos from XM-25's escape. He knew things were coming to a head. The climax and culmination of all of his carefully laid plans were approaching quickly. He had to be vigilant during this time, or everything he had sacrificed would be in vain.

No, Jonathan decided. He was too close to fail now.

He would not fail.

_Planet Daiban_

Samus was in a type of place that she hadn't been in since her days in the Federation army. A place that she wasn't too fond of if she was perfectly honest.

To put it bluntly, she was in a bar.

When she had first come here with some friends she had made back in her army days, she found it to be a rather odd if somewhat educational experience. She learned that she could out drink just about everybody in the bar, and that bars were usually good places to meet a lot of people. Unfortunately, she and her friends had come into the bar on the same day as the regular drunk did. The man actually had the audacity to smack something that he really shouldn't have. From what she heard, it took a month for the offending hand to heal.

She had been a bit off put by bars since that incident, but she couldn't deny that it was a decent place to hear about the comings and goings of galactic civilization.

So she sat alone in a corner and sipped her beer and listened for anything that could help her sort out what to do next. She did this while she looked through the information she had taken from Zade.

It wasn't encrypted at all, but it was a little bit hard to read, mostly because it wasn't what she was expecting. Instead of details on secret meetings and dealings, what it appeared to be was mostly some form of tax records. At first she thought that Zade had tricked her, but as she looked more intently, she noticed that many of the costs didn't add up. An example being the BSL station. The station had equipment that was bought and paid for but should have been out of their budget. No mention was made of where they got the money for some of that equipment. From there, the information became a list of people who must have been paid off.

But what was most interesting to Samus, was the lone picture file on the datapad. It was a a file that contained pictures of 12 individuals and it was labeled as "mission critical" on the datapad. This could only be pictures of the 12 that Zade had mentioned. Especially when Samus noted the man with scars on his face that matched the claws that Zade had used.

There were no names, just faces. And if these people were as powerful as Zade had said, then there would probably be very few public records on these people, if there were any at all.

"In other news, Marco Vellarzzer, a known weapons dealer for various criminal organizations, including Space Pirates, was found dead after his yacht exploded from what appeared to be a weapons malfunction. Investigators are confident that this…"

Samus tuned out the broadcast. Good news, but nothing relevant toward her current predicament. She went back to looking through the information.

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news, Samus Aran has escaped and is wanted for charges of destroying Federation property, treason and mass murder."

That got Samus' attention. She understood how she would have the first charges but why murder? How could they charge her with that?

"As unbelievable as it may seem, Samus Aran, renowned bounty hunter and hero of the galaxy, has apparently betrayed the Federation. This is footage taken from a Biologic Space Laboratory's research station., a station that was researching new medical technologies. Viewers are warned, this footage is disturbing."

At first, Samus thought that they had pieced together some sort of fake footage or used something out of context, what appeared on the screen though, was a bit more terrifying and more subtle.

On the screen, Samus Aran, clad in her Varia suit, was mowing down defenseless scientists in a frenzy. When security guards entered the room to try and stop her, she casually sent a missile toward them and blew them to pieces.

Samus was shocked. They were using footage of the SA-X to frame her. How they even got that footage was beyond her. The only real record of what happened on that station left was…oh no.

_Adam._ She thought. They must have taken this file from his memory and given it to the media. This would make the entire Federation come after her. _Son of a bitch he knew._ Samus thought angrily. _Zade knew they would do something like this. _On the downside, she would have to keep a very, very low profile now. But on the upside, she knew what her next objective was.

She quickly paid for her drink and left the bar, a new destination firmly in mind. She was going back to Federation Military HQ, the place where her trial had taken place and she had last seen Adam. This could very likely turn into a trap she knew, but she also knew she had to rescue Adam, not only for her own sake, but for his as well. She wasn't the type to leave friends behind.

She briefly spent a moment chastising herself. Of course she should have rescued Adam. She should have done that from the start instead of looking over that information.

Then she focused again, she had an objective and she would complete it. She took a brief glace at the badge on her Zero Suit. It had changed back to its normal color about a half hour ago. Signaling her that her suit was back to 100% and could be used again. She just hoped if things went well, she wouldn't have to use it.

As she made her way to the HQ, she began to think about how she was going to pull this off. A plan started to form in her mind…

Far above her head, a figure in black armor watched from the rooftops as she started walking in the direction toward the HQ. The figures helmet visor opened to reveal that it was none other than Zade. A victorious smirk plastered on his face. He took a deep breath of the city air and then without a word, he closed his visor and started to run. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, intent on getting there before she did. He sprinted toward the end of a building and jumped off. As he fell into the lanes of aerial hover traffic, his armor flickered for a moment, and then it was as though he had just vanished into thin air without a trace.


	5. Deal

Disclaimer, I don't own Metroid. Sorry this chapter has taken _forever._ My muse seems to be feeling fickle. Nevertheless, this story _will_ be finished. It might take awhile but I promise I'll finish it. I like this story too much to let it die. Regretfully, this update will be the last one for awhile. I'm going on a trip so the next update will probably be late October or early November. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Metroid: Destiny

_Planet Daiban: Galactic Federation Military HQ_

It was surprisingly easy to sneak into one of the most secure buildings on Daiban. There was no need to sneak in after dark (which wouldn't have helped much anyway, with all the city lights, it never really got dark on this planet) and there was no need to blow anything up either, (not yet anyway, but the night was still young) all that was really needed, was to knock out a secretary, "borrow" her clothes and keycard, and walk right in.

At least, that got her past the first layer of security. She knew it wouldn't be so easy from here on out. Security only got tighter as one when went further into the building. Samus had done her fair share of sneaking around in the past. Her own skills at avoiding detection and computer hacking while not the very best in the galaxy, were certainly nothing to sneer at either. And fortunately, for what she couldn't hack, she had the Varia Suit. With the advanced technology of her suit's scan visor, there wasn't a computer in the galaxy that she couldn't get into.

At the moment thought, the major problem was, that she had only gotten past the easy part of this venture. Once you made your way past the office levels, security tightened to an extreme amount. Retinal scans, DNA matching, voice activated locks, gel handprint scanners and enough infrared scanners and laser tripwires to guard a king's treasure.

And unfortunately for Samus, she had to go right into the most secure parts of this building. Before coming here, she had done some research on the building's construction with public records of the blueprints, however of course about half the building was deemed classified but she did have an idea of where to start. And she had Adam to thank for that.

In the hours that had followed the incident at BSL, Adam had explained exactly why she hadn't heard that important figures in the Federation often have their minds uploaded into computers when they die. It's because it was classified above top secret and the practice had really only started a few years ago. It was called the Lazarus Initiative, it was meant to be an ace against the Space Pirates. A way for the greatest assets of the Federation to be able to continue to serve, as such, it was highly classified. If the Space Pirates ever got their hands on the technology, their leadership would be able to cheat death, making them even harder to track down finish off.

But what Adam had also mentioned, was that while he did not remember _exactly_ where the Lazarus Initiative was located, he did say that he suspected that they would have to house the equipment for it in a cold place, due partly to the amount of electronics involved but mostly from the need to preserve any bodies or brain matter while they made the transfer, and that it would also need to be heavily shielded from any outside electronics and signals. Thus the most likely place where the Initiative was located was probably near the central computer core of the headquarters, the coolest and most heavily shielded part of the building.

Adjusting a pair of fake glasses she had bought at a store with the little money she had on her, Samus made her way to the cubicles and did her best to blend in with the office drones. Not an easy feet considering that she was easily taller than most of them and the most attractive one there.

For the time being though, she would do her best not to stand out and wait for an opportunity to venture inward.

"Hey there."

Which would probably be easier said than done.

Masking her irritation, she forced a smile and looked up at the bookish looking worker who was so obviously eyeing her up.

This brought up a bit of a problem. She couldn't just tell him to get lost, he might complain to his coworkers and that could attract more attention to herself.

She would have to be diplomatic, so she tried to relax as she responded to this latest obstacle.

"Hello."

The man smiled and leaned on the entrance of her cubicle trying to look suave. It didn't work.

"My name's John. I'm one of the supervisors around here. I don't think I've seen you around here before and I'm pretty sure I would remember such a lovely lady like yourself."

Samus resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she smiled awkwardly, trying to look a bit bashful.

"I'm new here actually. My name is Jessica."

John grinned. "A lovely name for a lovely woman. I should have known."

_Oh you've got to be kidding me, _thought Samus.

Oblivious to her disdain, John continued. "So if you're new here, do you want me to give you a tour? I know all the best places," the lewd grin that the man had on his face suggested that he wasn't talking about the places around the office.

Any other day, Samus would have just glared down at this type of slime ball and that would be enough to send him running. As it was, she thought she might be able to turn this around.

"I'd like that. But I really should be getting to work."

John waved her objection aside. "No worries. Besides, it will give me time to find out why I wasn't notified about a new arrival…"

"John stop trying to seduce the new help. You suck at it! And quit trying to pose as a supervisor! That's technically illegal you know!"

Samus looked toward the voice of her savior, a rather plump woman who seemed to be a mix of secretary, demanding boss and grandmother all in one. And right now, her wizened eyes were glaring at John like he had just had his hand in a cookie jar when he wasn't supposed to.

"Every time. Every single damn time something with breasts walks in, you leap on it like a pack of weasels on free food. Now get back to work before I fire your ass you lecher!"

Humiliation evident on his features, John stormed off, mumbling something about "that damnable old biddy."

Said biddy then turned to regard Samus. "Sorry about him. If he wasn't so good at his job I would have fired him years ago. My name is Janice. Janice Amuro. And _I'm_ the supervisor around here." Janice held out her hand for Samus, who shook it firmly, maybe too firmly as Janice winced a bit.

"Damn, for someone who was looking so meek a second ago, you've got one hell of a grip on ya. So you're new here huh? And from what I remember, you're not in our files for any new blood. There must have been a mix up, Oh well until then, take this visitors pass, it'll let you stay here without getting in trouble. Don't go anywhere that has the words supervisor clearance only on it. For obvious reasons. I'll get back to you later, we're running behind on some reports. Welcome to the beehive."

With that she departed at a brisk walk before Samus could say thank you. Leaving her to wonder how she was going to steal her ID card. Because the supervisor door was the least guarded door in the building. All it required was the keycard, after that, Samus could don her Varia suit and hopefully sneak and hack past the rest of the security. But first she would have to borrow Janice's card. With that said, a distraction could come in handy…

As though summoned by that very thought, an explosion sounded from the other end of the building.

The effect was immediate, alarms went off all over the building and security guards seemingly appeared out of nowhere to begin sheparding people toward the exits.

Samus' first instinct was to don her armor, rush to the site of the explosion, search for survivors and eliminate whatever, or whoever, caused that explosion.

However, as though lady luck had decided to smile on her, she caught another lucky break. One of the security guards was yelling into his radio.

"The explosion happened in an unoccupied part of the building. No casualties reported and we don't seem to be under attack. All security teams are to be on the lookout for intruders…"

No casualties and the building didn't seem to be under attack? Curious and a little too convenient for her taste, but Samus couldn't afford to pass this opportunity up. She quickly made her way over to Janice and grabbed her keycard. And then, fighting her way past the crowd, she used the keycard to open the door and stepped through hopefully before anybody saw her.

Once the door was closed, Samus took a look around, she was alone so now was a good time.

With a thought, she donned her Varia suit. Gone was the meek would be secretary she had portrayed herself to be, in her place was Samus Aran, freelance bounty hunter, and she had a mission.

Sprinting through the steel corridors of the base, Samus quickly worked her way toward the center of the base. Even passing through a familiar corridor that she used to take in the view from.

After she passed through there, her progress slowed immensely. She had to stop and switch to her scan visor to hack the building's security, deactivating cameras, sensor pads and even several concealed flame turrets.

Then she finally arrived at the computer core of the headquarters. Normally, only those with top level access could enter this area, but her scan visor hacked the security with almost contemptuous ease.

When she entered the core, she was dazzled for a moment. The entire core was a room that could fit her old spaceship about five times over. The walls were lined with streams of code that led to a pillar like structure in the middle of the room.

Samus did a quick sweep of the area before she approached the central computer.

"Identification please," a monotone female voice requested.

Again, Samus used her scan visor to bypass any security protocols.

"Top level clearance granted. Awaiting directive general."

Samus couldn't help but smirk a little at the thought of herself being a general.

"Access Lazarus Initiative."

"Complying."

The floor underneath her lowered itself down into a room filled with strange bits of equipment. But what got her to raise her weapon was the bodies that were strewn about the place.

About 20 Federation specialist troopers, a scan revealed that they were just unconscious, a few of them with broken bones, but they would live.

But something that could knock out so many specialists, was something she had to respect.

Still on her guard, she walked into the room. Looking for anything that would attack her.

She spotted something that looked like a data storage unit near the back wall and started making her way towards it. But as she did, she spotted something that made her tense up even more.

A pile of ten X series, lazily stacked near the storage unit and all bleeding out on the floor. Another scan revealed they were all dead from precision wounds as well as wounds where someone had stabbed the self destruct devices in their armor.

After she saw this, the sound of someone sharpening a knife began echoing throughout the room.

She immediately aimed at the spot where the sound was coming from, only to see a shadowed figure leaning casually against a wall sharpening a pair of familiar claws with a whetstone.

She could practically hear the smirk in Zade's voice.

"What kept you so long?"

Samus didn't lower her arm cannon a fraction.

"That explosion outside, that was you wasn't it?"

Zade shrugged. "Well I figured you could use a distraction. Besides what are partners for?"

Samus frowned. "I thought I told you I'm not interested in working with you."

With a small flourish, Zade pocketed the whetstone and stood up from his leaning position. His claws retracted into his gauntlet as he did so.

"Never have been good at taking no for an answer. And besides, this is twice I've saved your neck. And the neck of your former CO too actually."

He held up a datapad sized AI core. One that had the words A. Malkovitch written on them.

"They knew you would come for good ol Adam here. So they set a trap with the troopers and my old friends there." He nodded toward the deceased X series.

"Oh and two things you should know. One, apparently their being called Serpents now and two, the self destruct trigger seems to usually be located behind their left shoulder. Although in two of those guys it was located near their knees so you'll still have to watch out."

"Thanks for the warning," Samus replied dryly. "Now hand over the core."

"Or what? You'll risk losing your good friend here a second time?"

The words stung Samus and made her tighten her finger on the trigger of her arm cannon.

"Relax, I'm only joking. Getting this guy killed again would only make you very, very pissed at me. And I can't afford that. Because like I said before, I need your help."

Samus gestured at the unconscious and dead who littered the floor. "Seems to me that you're not bad in a fight. Why would you need my help?"

Zade seemed to sigh and started walking toward Samus.

"I don't really need your planet destroying expertise. Though that probably could come in handy. But what I really need from you is something a bit more subtle."

Zade stopped just a few inches in front of Samus' arm canon. At this range, even a few normal shots would kill him. But despite this, he just stood there and held out the AI unit for her to take.

"Take a look at where we are. We're right in the middle of the Federation computer system. If we wanted to, we could crash entire sections of the government. At least for a little while until the backups from the aurora systems came online. But this is still one of the most secure databases in the galaxy. So secure it would take the greatest of hackers months to crack it. And you gained full access with just a look."

Comprehension dawned on Samus as she took the AI core in her hand.

"You need my scan visor."

Zade nodded. "Exactly. With that visor you're able to get data out of computers easily. It's like having your own super hacker. I know a fair bit about the 12's operations but not enough. In order to bring them down I need more info. But they guard their info with perfect security measures. If someone accesses anything without their permission, the data is immediately dumped and deleted. I've gone to the best hackers in the galaxy for help with this problem and even they couldn't help me. You're my last shot Sammy."

Samus bridled a bit at being called Sammy but didn't say anything.

"If your still not sold on this whole partnership thing, I already talked to your CO there and filled him in on the details. Gotta hand it to him, he's got a good head on his shoulders. Well, figuratively speaking. He's actually suspected that there were people working behind the scenes of the Federation for quite awhile now. He thinks that the 12 even had a hand in the Bottle Ship incident a few years back. Remember that one?"

Of course she remembered that incident. That was where Adam had died.

"So as you can guess, he's also kind of interested in bringing down the 12. But don't take my word for it, talk to him."

Still wary of Zade, she began to download Adam from the AI core. Her suit had never actually housed an AI before, but she was certain that the suit could at least temporarily house one.

After a moment, the voice of Adam sounded in her helmet.

As was typical of Adam, he went straight to business without so much as a greeting. "Samus, I've talked to Zade and it makes sense. A partnership could be beneficial to both of us."

Samus cut off the voice module in her suit so that Zade wouldn't eavesdrop on this conversation.

"Adam he's an assassin. I don't want to work with someone who kills solely for a paycheck."

"I understand. But like he said I had a talk with him and he seems to be honest in his desire to work with you. Besides, he knows that if you die he can't use your scan visor. So he has to keep you alive at all costs. And if you work with him, you can make sure that he doesn't do anything you don't approve of."

She was silent at this. The argument and the logic were sound. But even so…

Adam seemed to sigh. "I also understand that you don't like working with others Samus. But this is the best shot that you have of bringing down the driving force behind all the corruption that's been plaguing the Federation. If the 12 keep pulling the strings, then who knows what twisted experiments they could loose upon the galaxy? The freeze proof metroids from the bottle ship or the X parasites alone could have wiped out the galaxy. We can't afford to keep letting them play god anymore."

As he usually was, damn him, he was right. But that certainly didn't mean she had to like it.

So she reactivated her voice module and lowered her arm canon.

"Alright fine then Zade. You have a deal but I have some conditions."

Zade chuckled. "Let me guess, you want me to be a good boy and not kill anybody who isn't relevant to the mission?"

Samus' tone was steel. "If you so much as look at a civilian wrong, I don't care what intel you have on the 12, I will end you."

"Why do you think I only killed the X series, sorry, I mean Serpents over there and went to all the trouble of knocking out the troopers down here? Just to show off my talent?"

With a small hiss, Zade's visor opened. He had once again changed his features, this time he now looked more oriental.

He held out his left hand as he flashed a feral grin.

"Well either way, you got yourself a deal. But if it ever came to a fight between us, I'd love to see you just _try_ to end me."

Samus regarded Zade for a moment and then finally shook his hand.

"Deal."

They let their hands drop. Samus wondering is she had shaken hands with a devil and Zade wondering if the endgame with the 12 was fast approaching.

"Well then, now that that's out of the way, I guess we…"

Then an alarm began blaring.

"…should get going," finished Zade.

Samus tried to hack the mainframe but it had shut down. The alarm must have been triggered manually from another part of the building. It was a safeguard that was in place in the event someone managed to get into the core.

"Well that's just great. Guess that's our cue to get out of here. Lets roll Sammy."

With that, the two of them began their partnership by escaping from one of the most secure facilities in the galaxy.

Zade closed his helmet but Samus was sure he still had that smirk plastered on his face.

"This is gonna be fun!"


	6. Escape

Disclaimer: I AM BACK BABY! And I still don't own Metroid. Sorry I'm late but as they say, better late than never right? Rest assured, I will NEVER give up on this or ANY fanfic that I am writing. It may take a long time but I finish what start damn it! Or at least I usually do. So without further ado please read, review and above all, enjoy!

Metroid: Destiny

On a normal day, the Galactic Federation Military HQ was abuzz with a kind of calm frenzy. People filling in and out, reports getting sent in orders being sent out meaning it was never really a tranquil place to be at. But today, hell had pretty much broken completely loose in the form of two figures tearing through just about anything that got in their way.

Any onlookers who saw these two figures saw one in black armor performing dizzying martial art maneuvers that seemed to defy the very laws of physics. Effortlessly leaping over and around laser blasts to get close to Federation Troopers to lay them out with punches and kicks that were too fast for normal eyes to follow.

The other figure, a female in orange and red armor that seemed to be a hybrid of metallic and organic matter moved with an incomparable grace, seeming to dance out of the way of the Trooper's fire while hitting their weapons, and only their weapons with pinpoint precision.

All in all, to the security personnel monitoring the situation, they thought that they were well and truly screwed against this combination.

Colonel Jack Berkerman, one of the people in charge of security for the entire building, grit his teeth in anger. It was obvious that these two were out of the league of any of the security troopers here. The positive side is that it seemed they were unwilling to kill the troopers. This was good. It meant that all he really needed to do was somehow corner the intruders into a position where their only option was to kill the troopers.

In other words, he was banking on their moral character. Something not even the worst excuse of a military commander would try to do. But watching as the duo easily tore through elite security teams with ease, he would dare anyone to try and come up with a better plan.

"Begin sealing off the entire section. Close all security doors, vent oxygen as well and dial up the temperature as far as it can go. That should at least slow them down."

"Yes sir!" said one of the techs as she proceeded to follow his order.

The entire section was now locked up tight. But to intruders of this caliber, at best the Colonel had gained about 5 minutes to come up with a plan. He needed to get started…

In the meantime, Zade, the figure clad in black, was laughing like he was having the time of his life.

"Hahahahahahaha! Come on you Federation pansies! That all you got?"

Samus in contrast, tried to avoid making noise. It was how the Chozo had taught her, minimize the amount of impact you make on your enemies senses. She found it very odd that this supposed assassin was acting like a young and inexperienced merc. Were it not for the skill he was demonstrating right now, she would be hard pressed to take him seriously.

"Havin' fun partner!" Zade called out to her.

Despite the severity of the situation, Samus had a massive desire to roll her eyes at that statement.

She didn't bother to reply to that question with words, Instead letting a volley of shots towards more guards answer for her.

They were almost at the exit when a security door slammed shut with a deafening clang. Trapping them inside with about a dozen more security guards.

Or rather, trapping the security guards inside with them. They did not last long.

Zade did a quick inspection of the door while Samus did a scan. They both came up with the same conclusion.

"Its gonna take a minute or two to blast our way out of here. Even with your power bombs. Unless I…wait, is it getting hot in here?"

Samus consulted her suit monitors, they confirmed that the corridor was losing its atmosphere and the heat was quickly rising.

Adam recognized this tactic. "Ahhh, Berkerman must be in charge of security here. I guess he finally got that promotion."

Zade regarded Samus. "Friend of yours?"

If Adam could nod, he would have. "He was nicknamed 'the castle' because he specialized in defensive strategies. Right now he's using a delaying tactic, trying to make us uncomfortable and unfocused while he comes up with a better plan. That door is about 1.5 meters of some of the heaviest metals in the galaxy. Samus, it will take about a dozen power bombs in order to break through this…"

"Screw that," Zade interrupted. "We'll just cut our way though."

Pshh!

Pshh!

Two handles jutted out of the side of Zade's armor on the upper legs. Zade grabbed them and drew two short swords.

He stabbed the door and to both Samus' and Adam's surprise, the blades sunk into the metal like it was butter.

He then proceeded to cut the door into chunks. One by one pieces of the door fell with thudding noises.

To all the security personnel on the other side of the door, it sounded like some sort of giant monster was walking towards them, either that or beating the living hell out of the door.

Samus did a quick scan of the swords, but when the scan was complete, the reading came up as something she had never seen before.

**Unknown Material **

Her Chozo suit was programmed with knowledge of every mineral and metallic substance in the galaxy. The only way something was unknown to her suit's databanks was if the Chozo themselves never came across it. She never thought that could happen.

_How did he get swords like that? _Despite what Zade had told her about himself, he was still quite the mystery. And she'd bet money that he preferred it that way.

"Ready?"

She nodded and prepared a missile.

"If I may make a suggestion? I think that if Samus uses her speed capabilities after blasting the door she can neutralize most of any forces that are gathered behind the door."

"Knock yourself out."

Samus took a few steps back and activated a new software function she programmed into her suit. Originally in order to use her full speed abilities or the shine spark as it was sometimes called, she needed a running start. Not anymore though. Now she could stand still and let the charge build up.

Once the booster was fully charged, she took aim and fired a missile at the weakened section of the door. The resulting debris from the explosion struck several guards, but the real damage came when Samus emerged from explosion like a vengeful bat out of hell.

She took in the arrangement of guards with a glance, and figured out the best way to neutralize as many of them as possible. She held our both of her arms straight out to the side as she ran through the center of their formation, essentially performing a move that she believed was called the clothesline in wrestling.

She skidded to a stop and spun around to pick off and stragglers that she missed.

But Zade was already upon them, slicing their weapons and armor into pieces and destroying critical systems.

When he was done he caught up with Samus.

"Did you really just clothesline those guys?"

"It seemed to be the most efficient move I could use."

"You don't actually watch wrestling do you?"

"No." In truth, she had only seen one wrestling show. It was back during her days with the Federation, one of the troops she worked with was a major wrestling fan. How anyone could enjoy such ridiculously melodramatic posturing was beyond her.

"That's good. If you did I might have to question this alliance of ours."

"Cut the chatter assassin," Adam's voice cut in. "We have to get out of here. I assume you have a plan?"

"Of course. This way." Zade sheathed his swords and led them down a maintenance corridor.

While following him, Samus accessed a map she had downloaded.

"You sure about this path? We're going further into the building."

Zade didn't reply, just continued to run ahead as though searching for something.

After a few more meters, he turned around to face Samus.

"Ok here's the plan." He pressed a part of his gauntlet and a holographic map appeared in his palm.

"This…" a red line appeared and snaked its way through the holographic corridors. "Is our route."

Adam immediately jumped in. "That route takes us right through the most heavily armed corridor in the building. It's swarming with automated defenses."

The map disappeared and Zade crossed his arms and adopted a stance that screamed, "I know something you don't and I feel superior."

"And here is where the difference between Samus and myself is properly demonstrated. While she goes in guns blazing I go in prepared."

With that he hit a nearby wall with his fist and a grate above him swung open and down fell two commando issue freeze guns.

He caught them with ease and with a flourish, holstered one of them. On the other gun, attached via a magnetic clamp, was what appeared to be a detonator of some kind.

Taking the detonator off of this gun, he primed it and hit the button.

The sound of explosives echoed through the entire building as the corridors were plunged into darkness.

"Let's go!" Zade shouted as he started to sprint. Samus followed on his heels, both of them almost nothing but blurs of speed. Automated defenses ignored them completely, focusing instead on the security guards using non-lethal rounds.

In the confines of the Varia Suit's processers, Adam had to admit he was quite impressed by this Zade character. He had really gone all out in preparation for this mission.

They dashed through the main exit of the building, Zade proving he was just as skilled with ranged weapons as with swords as he used his freeze guns to trip up troopers by the dozen.

Samus on the other hand, had decided to up the ante a little by switching to missiles. If she directly hit the troopers she would easily kill them but she managed to just knock troopers back with the blastwave, a true tribute to her skills as a markswoman.

As she was doing that, she also charged her speed boost for the coup d'état of this escape. She just needed to wait for the best moment…now!

"Jump!" she shouted at Zade. Despite his reservations, he jumped up high into a back flip, still shooting his freeze guns.

Samus then made her move, she fired a missile at the front door, and released her speed boost, grabbing Zade's wrist she essentially dragged him behind her like a kid would drag a kite.

She was just barely behind the missile she had fired, this was going to be close…

Every entrance of this building was carbon reinforced and coated with an anti beam repellant. But in this case physics didn't really care how tough the door was, being hit by a missile followed by a metal clad bounty hunter charging at a ridiculous speed spelled the end of the door as Samus and Zade crashed through it.

A squad was positioned in a semi-circle directly in front of their new exit. Lacking other more graceful options, Samus threw Zade into the formation. To Zade's credit, he managed to knock all of the troopers down and only bounced off the ground once before he managed to get back on his feet.

"Follow me!" Zade yelled to her. She quickly caught up to him just as he primed his detonator one more time. With a push of a button, hidden smoke grenades began to obscure the entire area and what could only have been some sort of flash bang grenades began to go off like firecrackers. It was one hell of a show and the perfect cover for an escape.

Samus and Zade slipped away in the confusion, running as fast and as far as they could before Zade motioned for both of them to stop at the back of a bar several kilometers away.

"Lose the suit," but her suit was already dissipating before the words were even out of Zade's mouth.

"Huh, that's gotta come in handy," Zade's suit on the other hand, was only halfway done releasing its occupant. "There's some clothes in the dumpster to your left. Don't worry they don't smell. Grab them and start putting them on."

Samus looked inside the dumpster and sure enough, a sealed package containing clothes was in there. Clothes that seemed quite a bit more ostentatious than the last set of clothing Zade had given her.

"Are we going to a formal party?" she asked.

Zade was crouched over his suit and disassembling it into smaller pieces. "Kind of. We need to get off this planet, my ship is drifting between here and Sinnox IV. So I've arranged for transport that will take us that direction."

She digested this for a brief moment about to ask why they couldn't take his ship before she realized something. "I heard on the news there was an arms dealer whose ship exploded in a hanger. That was the ship you showed me wasn't it? "

"The very same ship that I brought you aboard. Yep that was me. I needed a place where I could evaluate you and make a good impression. Plus I had to check on the bomb I had on that ship. Wouldn't want my target to walk away alive now would I?"

As she put the clothes over her zero suit, she spared Zade a glare. "Using a bomb in a civilian sector docking area was very risky."

Tossing the remaining clothes to Zade, he began to put them over his suit as he gave a small sigh.

"This again? If I recall the report correctly that guy was the only one who died in the explosion. I made sure that I wouldn't cause any collateral damage."

"Hmm," her reply was less than enthused.

Zade finished dressing and grabbed a wrapped suitcase from another dumpster, without looking at Samus he began to put the pieces of his suit into the case.

"Y'know I think we need to get one thing completely straight between the two of us. I know you don't like me, hell I don't particularly like you either but I do respect you and your abilities. So I merely ask that you do me the same courtesy and don't treat me like some rabid dog that's about to go off the leash. Put some of this on too, not too much though." He tossed her a container of nano putty which she caught with ease. "The facial features are already programmed into it. Just put it on."

She opened the container and began to rub the putty on her face. It felt really odd to her, almost like some kind of sandpaper.

"As I was saying," Zade continued. "Call me what you want, killer, mercenary, handsome bastard. I'm all those things and more. But don't insult me by treating me like I'm going to kill every living thing in sight, Because above everything else that I am, I am a professional. I only kill who I need to kill."

He finished packing his armor and putting on his clothes. Making sure his suit jacket was fitted properly. "And besides, that arms dealer just made me 300,000 credits. And believe me, we're gonna need to live off of that money for quite awhile."

Samus put on the dress over her zero suit and donned a coat that hid the rest of the suit quite nicely. All the while resisting the urge to scratch at her face while the putty morphed into different facial features.

Zade regarded her disguise with a critical eye. "Not bad, it'll do. Make sure you don't scratch, the putty doesn't come off easily, but scratching could compromise the effects."

She nodded in understanding, still not quite used to wearing the strange substance. _This is going to take some getting used to…_

"And here, is my masterpiece, my plan to get us off this rock," he reached into his jacket and withdrew what appeared to be two tickets.

Upon closer examination, Samus realized they were tickets for a star cruise.

Zade apparently noticed the raised eyebrow she had. "Don't look at me like that it's a perfectly plausible way to get off world. And its not as easy as you think to arrange it. I had to prepare perfect fake identities for the both of us so you'd better be grateful. I even got us the honeymoon suite. No small achievement there babe."

He ignored the split second twitch her eye did at being called "babe" as she asked "why did you bother with the honeymoon sweet then?"

"Because newlyweds are pretty much expected to spend a lot of time locked in their rooms," Zade responded with the most salacious tone of voice he could muster.

"That's our cover?"

"Yep. Normally I'd get down on one knee when asking a girl to please be my Mrs. Yuki Armatto, but I don't want to get anything on the suit."

She almost snorted in response to such a ridiculous statement but she resisted the reaction.

"Ready to go?" She nodded in response.

"Let's go catch a cab then," he said in a voice that sounded like a completely different person.

_Vocal implants too? Or just really good acting skills? _She wondered briefly. _Either way, a talent like that takes a great deal of credits to install or some very impressive training. _

She thought back to their breakout earlier, how he had fought. Apparently favoring close combat but still being precise with his freeze guns.

She herself had trained as a warrior from an early age, but judging from what she'd seen of Zade, so had he. And while she had every confidence she could take him if it came down to it, this man's abilities were definitely not to be underestimated.

Zade managed to grab them a cab and they began to head over to the AstroParadise star cruise. On the way there, Samus regarded herself in the mirror. She didn't look anything like her normal self. She too now looked like she had come from an oriental decent. She had never really had to disguise herself before, she was used to walking around with confidence born from knowing that she was the deadliest thing to walk the streets.

Now in order to protect herself and the soldiers who were being manipulated into coming after her, she had to hide behind nanites, cover I.D's.

It made her feel hunted, and if there was one thing she _hated, _it was feeling like her enemies held her at any sort of disadvantage. She was the hunter, never the hunted.

The cab continued through the skyways as the first rays of dawn began to shine.


	7. Preparations

Disclaimer: I do not own Metroid or anything associated with it. However, I suppose you could say that I do own Zade as he is what I believe is called, an OC. I think I should have said this before, there will most likely be SPOILERS for about every Metroid game that has been made. So don't say I didn't warn ya! Whew! This is the longest fanfic (and longest chapter!) I've ever written so far and I gotta say, I really like writing it. It's a bit challenging portraying Samus as a character. So many different possible interpretations of her. Is she a complete badass bitch through and through? Is there a scared lonely girl behind the visor? Somewhere in between leaning more to one side of the spectrum than the other? It's maddening at times but I hope I'm doing a good portrayal. And once again, I am babbling. As always everybody, please read, review and enjoy!

Metroid: Destiny

"You know, whoever came up the idea of putting a mirror over a bed, was a damn genius in my opinion."

Samus and Zade were in the honeymoon suite of the AstroParadise starliner. They had managed to get aboard the ship with no trouble at all, Zade's fake identities worked perfectly. No one batted an eye at the newly wedded couple. Even if the beautiful bride seemed to smile a bit awkwardly at the congratulations they received as the husband wrapped an arm around her waist.

Once they made it to the honeymoon suite, Samus quickly pulled Zade's arm off of her waist with perhaps a little more force than was necessary and then she went to one of the bags Zade brought along and began to rummage through them for a toolkit. Once she found it she let the top of her dress fall so she could reach her Zero Suit. She tapped the badge on the suit twice, which made the front of the badge semm to melt away in a low light and exposed the advanced circuitry beneath it. Without a word she began to work on the suit sitting at a makeup dresser and using its large mirror to see the circuits better.

Zade, by contrast, had shaken his sore wrist once and then just leapt into the bed, landing on his back with his hands behind his head and had been in that position ever since.

And had also been grating on her nerves ever since.

"I mean think about it, in some positions you can't see the face of your partner when your doing bedroom acrobatics. So then you pretty much only have sound to indicate if your doing a good job or not and that can be faked easily enough. But facial expressions? They reveal things even when we don't want them to. As long as you know how to read them."

Samus continued to ignore him as she tweaked her suits circuitry with an electro-stim screwdriver.

"And silk sheets! Whoever invented these ought to be promoted to godhood. Most comfortable invention ever!"

Still not even a twitch from Samus, she was completely focused on her task.

Zade sighed and looked back at the mirror to regard his latest face. Like all of his disguises, it was flawless. Nobody would be able to tell it was a disguise in the first place. Much less figure out that he looked completely different underneath the nano putty.

It reminded him of the fact that he 'd hardly seen his own face for years now. Blending into society meant he had to make sure any facial recognition systems or cameras of any kind didn't catch sight of him. If they did, the 12 would send people after him faster then he could blink. Because of that, he'd been barely able to go just a day without the putty. Not if he wanted to keep the pressure on the 12.

_At least this color hair is a bit better than my natural color. That's a plus. _He thought wryly.

He looked back over at Samus who was still fiddling with her suit. He had to admit, from what he had seen of her so far, she had certainly lived up to her reputation. He had expected nothing less of her. She was faster than hell, had marksman skills that were about even with his (something very few in the galaxy could claim) possessed an agility and grace he had never seen before in combat and judging by the lingering soreness in his wrist, was a bit stronger than him too.

And this wasn't even accounting for that miraculous power suit of hers. With her natural gifts and training combined with that technology, there was little doubt that she'd be able to take him in a straight fight.

And worst of all, she seemed to have a decent head on her shoulders when it came to combat too. That made everything else all the deadlier. If it did ever come down to a fight, he'd have to make sure it wasn't a straight up one.

Other than that, so far she seemed to be exactly as he had assumed in the amateur psyche profile he had put together on her. Basically, a loner with a hero complex who also came with a side of sole survivor trauma issues. What fun.

Granted, that was something that worked just fine for him as far as this job went. Personally though? He couldn't stand people who had damn hero complexes.

"And speaking of revealing facial expressions, mind revealing what exactly you're doing there?"

And she continued to ignore him. Amazing really.

"You really don't talk much do you?"

Silence was the only reply he got.

Momentarily defeated, Zade went back to relaxing. As someone who had been an assassin for all of his life, Zade was no stranger to silence. In many ways, he usually preferred it.

But this time, he had to admit he was curious about Samus. There wasn't a citizen in the Federation who hadn't at least heard of her in passing. But by and large she was a bit of a mystery to everyone. Hell, a lot of people were still convinced she was a guy.

But what was she like personally? That was something Zade was pretty sure not even her closest friends knew for sure. If she even had any friends.

Bottom line? He was very interested to see how she would react to his prodding. And it was so very fun acting like an annoying prick at times.

It was at this point that Samus decided to interrupt his musings.

"I have a question for you."

Zade's ears and eyebrows perked up a bit. "My my, it does talk. Have I been deemed worthy of conversation?"

She ignored the jest.

"When we've found the 12, what will you do?"

"Isn't that obvious? Kill em like dogs of course. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. And afterwards?"

The assassin sat up to get a better look at Samus, a bemused expression on his face.

"These questions are assuming that we find the 12 in the first place and then survive taking them down. Which honestly is assuming quite a lot, most people would think this is a suicide mission."

Samus seemed a little surprised at this statement.

"You don't think much of our chances?"

"Ha! Oh don't get me wrong, we'll find them. I'm just telling you the odds don't exactly favor us. With that in mind, I'm wondering why your bothering with questions like that."

"You didn't answer my question."

"What will I do afterward?" Understanding dawned in Zade's eyes. "Ohhh I get it. Your wondering if you'll need to turn me into the authorities or kill me after this is done."

A rather sinister chuckle escaped from Zade.

"Oh you conniving minx you. Already thinking about killing me when I'm no longer useful? Gotta say, that's kinda hot."

_That_ made Samus turn around and regard Zade with a very confused look on her face.

The assassin just shrugged. "I was raised to be a killing machine, I'm allowed to have strange tastes."

Samus' face quickly returned to its usual calm state as she turned back toward the mirror to continue working.

Zade's face by contrast, was grinning like a madman. _Oh this really is going to fun! _He thought to himself. But for now, he figured he'd cut her a bit of a break. Returning to his former position laying down, he made himself comfortable before answering her question.

"I've never really given too much thought to what I'd do after this was all over and done with. Taking on the 12 requires focusing on the present and near future instead of the far future. But I guess I wouldn't mind racking up some savings and buying a beach house on Halcyon IV. Specifically on one of the planets many nude beaches."

Once again, Samus had a massive urge to roll her eyes.

"But then again, I'd probably get bored rather quickly with that. I'd miss my job too much."

Samus' hands stopped in mid-motion at that and her eyes became icy. "You enjoy being an assassin?"

Zade couldn't hold back his laughter. "Hell. Yes," He responded eagerly. "Why? Were you hoping that wasn't the case so that you wouldn't have to shoot me in the back after all of this? That I'd completely quit my evil ways and walk away from my path of bloodshed and violence to seek atonement?" He continued mockingly before his voice hardened. "Do yourself a favor, don't get any naïve illusions about me. I was born and bred to be a killer. I was raised to enjoy killing and I enjoy it a _lot_. So don't mistake me for some storybook repentant assassin. I may not have chosen this at first, but it's who I am and I make no apologies. I don't deserve, need or _want_ forgiveness."

His voice was cold and bloodthirsty enough to put the most murderous of Space Pirates to shame. Samus had half a mind to put on her armor in case he decided to try and kill her right then and there.

But Zade just laid there on the bed, his face impassive. And Samus realized that she may have underestimated the level of danger he presented. Beneath the smirks, the jokes and the laid back demeanor, this man was a wanton murderer, plain and simple.

Then in an instant, the coldblooded murderer vanished to be replaced by the cocky jokester that she was becoming familiar with.

"And besides if you think about it, being an assassin is the best job in the galaxies. You make your own hours, you're your own boss, the pay is awesome if you're really good and best of all, you get to travel and meet people. And believe it or not, some of those people are rather interesting. Of course you also meet your share of scum too but if your lucky you get to kill those people so they don't bug you anymore. And if you have to kill the interesting ones…well then it was nice knowing them but that's just how it goes."

Samus' fingers tightened around the tools she was using as she debated whether or not to shoot Zade right then and there.

She was spared deciding for the moment when she touched the right circuit and Adam's voice sprang from the badge.

"Ah, Samus? Are you there?"

"Adam, can you hear me?"

_So that's what she was up to. _Zade thought. _Finding a way to communicate with her CO. _

"Yes Samus, I hear you. But I'm not getting a tactical readout from your suit. I can't see anything. Am I communicating to you through your zero suit?"

"Yes. I've made some modifications." Her zero suit was far more than just a piece of clothing. It was made out of a tough nano polymer that was highly resistant to any kind of ripping. It could stop knives with ease and even offered some protection from lower powered beam weapons.

But its true use, was to act as a connector to her power suit. Samus could summon her suit at will with or without the zero suit. But maintaining the power suit requires immense levels of mental concentration. Normal people wouldn't be able to do it at all. The zero suit helped to essentially ground the suit to physical reality thus lessening the stress on Samus' mind and allowing her to wear her power suit for longer stretches of time.

By tweaking the circuitry in the suit, she was able to allow the computer in her power suit to interact with her zero suit. Normally this would be effectively useless but with an AI in her suit, it now gave her someone to talk to besides Zade.

"I see. I take it we're off Daiban now?"

"Yep!" Zade jumped in. "We are in the honeymoon suite of the AstroParadise starliner. Thanks to yours truly of course."

Adam would have cocked an eyebrow if he had one. "The AstroParadise? Isn't that a bit…ostentatious?"

Zade shrugged. "What can I say? I like to travel in style. But if its too cozy for a military type such as yourself, then rest assured. We'll be leaving this ship by this time tomorrow. My ship is floating in space so when we get close enough, we're basically going to leave this ship through the express route."

"We're going to jump?" Samus asked surprised.

"Pretty much yeah," Zade replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"I take it you've made the necessary preparations." Adam stated more than asked.

"Please, have you learned nothing about me in our time together so far? I _always _make the necessary preparations."

Then he sat up again. "But more importantly, let me ask you this. You say you can't feel anything at all when Samus is wearing her, what'd you call it, zero suit?"

"That's right. Apparently I can only talk and listen when in this state. So you'll have to tell me when the coast is clear. Otherwise I'll just stay silent."

"That's probably a good idea. No one wants to listen to you anyway. But getting back on track, you can't feel a thing from the hot suit? Not a thing?"

Adam's voice suddenly became so disdainful Samus could practically see his disapproving glare.

"Are you really getting at what I think your getting at?"

"Think about it! You're in a skintight suit being worn by a woman who's body is easily a nine if not a ten. That's about as intimate as you can get. And you didn't even have to buy her a drink all you had to do was go off yourself in a spectacularly stupid act of sacrifice and get your brain matter uploaded to a chip."

Samus glared lasers at Zade.

"Adam gave his life to end a threat to the Federation. Don't you _dare_ belittle that."

Zade scoffed. "Yeah and for his reward he was uploaded to a skintight suit, copping the mother of all feels on a gorgeous girl and he can't even enjoy it. Good show Adam, good show."

That was it for Samus. She closed the badge on her suit and stood up ready to strangle Zade.

"Easy Samus," Adam cautioned. "He's just trying to push our buttons to see how we react. You know that."

Damn it she did know that. But for some reason she just couldn't _stand _this assassin. And mocking the man who had been pretty much the only human father figure that she had known in her life was almost too much.

"As for you assassin. It would be wise of you to not test us too much. You are very dangerous, I'll give you that. But we both know that Samus has you outgunned and there's no guarantee that you can beat her. And antagonizing us won't help us complete this mission. Remember, you need us just as much as we need you. Like it or not, we're a team. And a team functions better when they're not trying to wage psychological warfare or trying to kill each other. Give us some respect and we'll give you the same courtesy."

Adam paused then and then he let a bit of smugness into his voice. "And we both know that you are very worthy of respect Zade. After all Samus and I are standing in the presence of a ghost."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't bother playing games with me. I don't have the patience."

Samus was confused. "What do you mean by a ghost?"

"Officially speaking, the best assassin in the galaxy is a woman who goes by the name of Deserie Drakleen. She's managed to kill several heads of state, dozens of industrial leaders and completely wiped out one of the richest known families in the Federation. She even attempted to assassinate Chairman Keaton before he retired. And she got closer to succeeding than the Federation ever admitted. It was only because her employer was killed that she dropped the hunt."

She remembered Chairman Keaton. She had once saved his life. At one point in time he was essentially the president of the Federation, before his term expired.

"But there are rumors," Adam continued. "Of an assassin even better and more relentless than her, an assassin who's never failed or dropped an assignment. Some of the rumors say that half of Deserie's reputation is due to her friendship with this assassin. That it was him who pulled off some of the more difficult assassinations and made it look like she did it. But no one knows anything about this assassin. Most debate whether or not he exists at all. But those who do think he exists, have come up with a variety of names for him. Shinigami, Mr. Nobody. Some called him Lucifer because like the devil, he's convinced most people he doesn't exit. Personally, I called him the ghost."

Zade looked quite intrigued by Adam's speech. "And where, did you hear these ridiculous rumors?"

"Several years ago, I was assigned to help investigate the possibility of foul play in the death of Federation General Simon Etcher."

"I heard about that. He didn't die of natural causes?" Samus asked.

"That's why most people don't think the ghost exists. Because he never leaves a trace. No security system tripped, no witnesses, not even a cause of death. The body always looks like it just died. No injuries, poisons. Nothing. The only clue that gave the possibility of it being an assassination, was the sudden drain of money from various accounts of the Daiban Mafia. Apparently, Etcher had dealings with them but double-crossed them to line his pockets. Cost some good soldiers their lives and apparently angered the mafia very much."

"I didn't know Daiban had a mafia," Samus stated. She had never seen any criminal warrants or prices on the head for a Daiban mafia member.

"That's because they keep their nose relatively clean. They mostly deal in smuggling goods and run a small drug business. It's rather respectable as far as mafias go. But if you cross them, people die."

The assassin snorted. "The Daiban Mafia barely deserves the name. I've worked with real mafias, and let me tell you, they make the one on Daiban look like a kids club."

"So do you admit to being the ghost then?"

Zade finally decided to get off of the bed and moved toward the door. Stopping just short of it to regard Samus.

"Of course not. The ghost is a myth."

"Interesting then, that I've never heard anything about an assassin who went by the name of Zade."

"It's not even my real name of course you haven't heard of me. Idiot."

"And your skill seems to be far beyond the average assassin."

"Meh, if you've got talent you've got talent. And besides that not saying much. The average assassin is usually little more than a thug. I'm going out to hit the casinos. Wanna come?"

"No." Samus answered quickly.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I guess you two have a lot of catching up to do. Makes me think of some of the rumors I heard about you two. Any truth to those?"

"None whatsoever," Adam answered.

"No forbidden office romance between you two? How boring. Be back in a bit."

Then he was gone.

"You think he'll try anything Adam?"

"I have a feeling the only thing he'll try tonight is cheating at gambling. Like I said, he can't risk doing anything that crosses a line with you. He needs you. Which makes me wonder why he keeps trying to get under our skin."

Samus moved toward the bed and took her turn to lie down on it. She had to admit, Zade was right. It was comfortable.

"I think he just wants to know how to make me mad. Try to make me lose focus for when we fight each other."

"I notice you said when instead of if."

"I don't think this partnership of ours will end well. He's a murderer Adam, and I don't think he intends to stop." She couldn't say that with 100% certainty, but the bloodlust in Zade's voice when he told her he enjoyed killing, left little doubt that he would ever aspire to be anything other than an assassin. And if that was the case, she could not let him escape.

"Hmm, well see. But for now, we'll just have to make working with him as bearable as possible."

Samus sighed softly as she leaned her head back and regarded the mirror. Once again taking in her temporary face. Not really liking what she saw it seemed to look…chubby compared to her own face.

"By the way Samus, I've been meaning to ask you, how exactly…did I die?"

She stopped examining her face as Adam hesitantly asked that question.

"You don't know?"

"My intelligence and brain patterns were uploaded right before what is known as the Bottle Ship incident. I did some research and more than a little hacking and learned about some of the experiments taking place there, such as the freeze proof metroids. I've put together most of the picture myself but…I…still want to hear what happened from you. You were there after all. And I feel like I need to know."

In all the years Samus had known Adam, she had never heard him sound unsure or hesitant about anything.

Her own mind turned to the Bottle Ship, many years ago. It had not been one of her best assignments nor the best period of her life. Looking back, she was still a bit naïve back then. And perhaps a bit too focused on the past.

"It's a long story, but I'll tell you what happened. Let me start at the beginning…"

_4 hours later: Observation Lounge 3 of the AstroParadise_

The ship glided through the stars with grace and power. Everything was going smoothly with the ship. This was good, it meant no one had sabotaged it. After checking the engines for signs of tampering and putting people to shame in Tetra 5 hold 'em, Zade found himself in the park like setting of one of the observation lounges.

The observation lounges on the ship were usually only populated when the ship was passing a nebula or some other astral phenomenon. So it was a perfect place for Zade to go for some privacy to count the money he won from the casino (3000 credits, these people didn't know how to bluff to save their lives) and to gather his thoughts.

The lounge wasn't completely empty, some younger and older couples were in here, just enjoying the quiet. But it was quiet enough for Zade.

He looked upwards at the distant stars, the sight was always rather soothing to him. Calming, allowing him to think more clearly.

Samus was a pretty tough nut to crack apparently, you could throw insults, crude jokes and innuendos and she'll barely even blink. But if you know the right subjects, such as the death of people close to her, then she could get mad as hell at you. Killing innocent people also got her riled up. Obvious one that.

And it did present problems, in hindsight, it probably would have been better if he lied and said something like he only targeted the wicked or something.

He sighed. No, he just couldn't do that. He had no qualms with lying to, or cheating someone. Or using disguises to make people think he was someone else. (Hell, once he had disguised himself as a woman's husband. And did very, very naughty things with her while her real hubby was away.)

But lying about who he was when he had already introduced himself as Zade? He couldn't do that. Too many damn morals no matter how screwed up they were.

"But aren't you lying to her now?"

He whirled around to see a young teenage girl with blue hair, a nose ring and various tattoos, her violet colored eyes gazing at him sadly.

"You're…"

Zade's eyes shot open as his hand grabbed the arm of the teenage boy who was trying to steal one of his credit chits.

The boy would have screamed had not Zade's other hand roughly covered his mouth.

More than a bit ticked off at the kid's idiocy, Zade looked right into his terrified eyes from mere centimeters away.

"Stealing. Is. Bad." He said in a voice filled with murder. The boy nodded.

"Don't. Do it. Again."

"Mhh hmm, mhh hmm!"

"Go."

As soon as Zade's grip loosened, the boy immediately began to try and set a new land speed record on foot.

Zade waited until he was out of sight before finally letting go of his laughter.

"Ohhh damn that was worth dozing off for!"

His chuckling faded as he realized what had happened though. He had actually fallen asleep under the starry canopy, that never happened.

_Damn, maybe I should get more sleep. Or maybe it's something else?_ Zade shook that thought off and stood up to walk back toward the honeymoon suite. Not noticing the slight twitch his hands made as he left the lounge.

When he got back to the suite, he found Samus taking an inventory of the bags. When she saw Zade enter she grabbed a small cylinder from the bag and showed it to him.

"What are you doing with five exotic matter particle generators?"

Zade instantly tensed up and brought his hands up in a "calm down" gesture.

"Hey hey! Easy with those! They're kinda delicate."

"Exotic matter generators are one of _the_ most illegal weapons in the Federation. How the hell did you get five of them?" Adam demanded.

"Let's just say I know some people who know some people who I killed some people for and they were very grateful. Really grateful and leave it at that ok? And while we're at it, how about we please put those things back into storage. They're kinda scary y'know?"

Exotic matter particle generators were not technically explosives. They were originally supposed to be an energy source. Like the name stated they produced particles that didn't belong in the normal universe. Thus when these particles interacted with particles of our universe, they made strange and unpredictable phenomena happen. Sometimes they froze everything in a 25 kilometer range. Other times they created flames that burned hotter than the core of a sun. There were even some cases where they created black holes that swallowed half a planet before they died off. It was after one such incident, that the Federation officially outlawed their use and all research to use exotic particles as an energy source was put on indefinite hold.

Needless to say, Zade had a healthy fear of the things and didn't need Samus waving one around.

"As for what I'm doing with them, well it pays to have some extra oomph lying around. And while you never know what those things are gonna do, you know it will always be something big. So, into storage unit please."

Samus seemed to debate whether or not to put the generator into the storage unit or just keep it out to watch Zade squirm. As much as she enjoyed seeing the latter, it was probably safer to put it back.

Zade didn't even bother hiding his relief.

"Thank you. Thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou. Whew!"

The near panicked reaction of the assassin who had nonchalantly said they would be jumping off of a starliner only hours before intrigued Adam. "You've seen one of these in action haven't you?"

"Twice. And both times were the scariest moments of my life. One reversed the pull of gravity for a full two minutes. I had to hold onto the ground with my _teeth_ to keep from floating away. And as for the second time, you know that line that some philosopher once said? 'If you stare too long into the abyss the abyss stares back?' Complete bullcrap. The abyss doesn't stare, it tries to _eat _you. It tries to swallow you whole. So forgive me if I get a little jumpy with those. And speaking of which how the hell did you break the…oh right. Scan visor."

Zade walked over to the storage canister to check and make sure everything was in order. To his surprise, the code screen was completely different.

"You changed the locks didn't you. And what is…is this Chozo code? Great, pretty much nobody can break that."

"That was the idea."

Satisfied the canister was intact and they weren't going to die a sudden death by being pulled into a black hole at the moment. Zade gently put it back in the bag and sighed.

"You're not going to trust me with _anything _are you."

"For an assassin who prides himself on being a professional and 'only killing who he needs to kill' you have weapons that are less than precise."

"Oh relax will you? If my target is on a populated world I wasn't planning on bringing them along. I never intended to do that. I want the 12 dead and buried but not by killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people. I'm a killer, not a monster. But if it will make you happy, I will let you be in charge of the weapons of mass destruction. Oh wait you're an orphan you've never been happy."

Samus didn't react at all to the tirade. Then just watched silently in surprise as Zade went over to the bed, took off his suit jacket, and his shirt, threw them on the floor and then crawled into bed.

"I'm not going to argue with you tonight about this, instead I'm going to sleep and I am taking the cozy silk sheeted bed. You can have the couch. Or hell you can climb in here. But be forewarned…" He shifted under the covers for a moment.

"I like to sleep in the nude." Then he tossed his pants over in the general area of his shirt.

"Goodnight."

And within a few seconds, he appeared to be asleep.

Samus did not quite know how to react to that brief tirade. She had not anticipated that he would yield control of the generators so easily. Nor did she anticipate that Zade would strip and then take the bed for himself.

"Is he really asleep?" Adam asked.

She didn't reply, instead she repacked the bags, wondering briefly how Zade had managed to get this stuff through security. Put the bags down, walked over to the bed and stopped for a moment in contemplation, then decided on a course of action.

She ripped the sheets off of Zade and then roughly kicked him out of the bed.

To Zade's credit, he didn't land in an awkward heap on the floor. On the contrary, he actually managed to throw a knife at her while he was falling, pull a freeze gun from beneath his pillow, land on all fours like a cat and spin around so he could aim the gun at her. Which would have left Samus at his mercy had not Samus easily caught the knife that was aimed at taking a bit of her hair off and nothing else and flipped it with her fingers ready to throw it right back at him.

Stalemate.

They remained there for a frozen moment. Samus standing and Zade in a crouched stance aiming his gun up at her. Oddly enough, Zade looked more amused than angry as he slowly stood up, still keeping his gun aimed at her.

"You know, if wanted to take a look at my junk that badly, all you really had to do was ask. Feel free to take a peek now though."

Her eyes didn't waver for an instant from his as she kept the knife ready to be thrown at the slightest provocation.

"I'm taking the bed," she said in an icy monotone that would brook no argument.

"Are we seriously going to stare at each other with weapons in hand over who gets the silk sheeted bed?"

Samus said nothing and just continued to stare at Zade without blinking. A stare that Zade matched with equal intensity.

Unknown to each other though, they both thought almost the exact same thing at the same time.

_This has to be the most immature thing I've ever done._

A full two minutes passed before Zade finally decided that this was pointless and slowly lowered his gun. Samus waited a few seconds before doing the same.

"_Fine_, I will let you have the bed tonight as well. You damn well better be worth all the concessions I'm making for you Aran. Cause at this point I'm practically bending over backwards for you. Feel free to keep the knife as a souvenir, I've got more."

With that, Zade grabbed some extra sheets and went into the other room to go to sleep on the couch.

Samus allowed herself a small grin of triumph before she noticed that the knife in her hand was a little too heavy in the handle…

In the other room, Zade's face was incredibly smug as he grabbed a small remote control and was about to press the red button on it when he heard the sound of a knife being thrown and the blade sinking into one of the bags he brought into the room.

The smugness immediately faded into bitter disappointment as he turned around to see the knife he threw at Samus, a knife containing a taser, a small flashbang grenade and sleeping gas inside the handle that could be activated by the remote control in his hand, was sticking out of his bag of clothes.

_Well that's just great. So much for plan B. She really is pretty good._

With a sigh of defeat, Zade put the remote and the knife away, quickly brushed his teeth and then got as cozy as he could on the couch.

_Well on the plus side_ He thought as he gradually fell asleep. _At least I know she's capable. Unfortunately that might make this a little less fun than I thought it would be. Ugh._

Meanwhile in the main bedroom, lying down on the most comfortable bed she'd been on in years, Samus felt unusually smug about beating Zade at one of his own games.

_Maybe this won't be as bad I thought. _She contemplated before drifting out of consciousness.

_Undisclosed Location_

"Just quarantine the damn planet already! Unleash a virus, a bioweapon and blame it on the Space Pirates, that's why we keep them around."

Jonathan resisted the urge to sigh as he rubbed his scars. He respected every member of this council as it were, but damn if Leonard couldn't be the biggest pain in the ass at times.

Only a few members were present at the moment, himself, Allison, Che Seda and unfortunately, Leonard. Everyone else had their own affairs to deal with today.

Jonathan gave Leonard a longsuffering look before attempting to explain his rationale and not sound like he was scolding a child.

"At this point that would just cause us more trouble than it's worth. We've been following potential sightings of XM-25 and Samus for hours now. Had we quarantined the planet sooner we may have managed to slow them down a little bit but by now, we're just following red herrings, smokescreens that XM-25 set up. Doctored security footage and drugged up criminals and junkies dressed in fake armor similar to his own. No, Leonard, by now I guarantee you he and Samus are off of Daiban."

"Then the question is," entered Che Seda before Leonard could go on another tirade. "Can we track how they got offworld?"

"Regretfully, that's almost impossible." Allison intoned. "Daiban gets a massive amount of interstellar traffic to and from the planet. And with XM-25's penchant for disguise, its like finding a needle disguised as a straw of hay in the largest haystack you can imagine."

Che Seda got a laugh out of that. "You humans and your sayings. Most interesting I must admit."

Leonard sighed in defeat. "So now what? We just wait until XM-25 strikes and then try to kill him before he can escape?"

Jonathan was about to answer before another member's hologram activated.

"Ah, Veraza, do you have any news for us?"

The Vhozon member of the group nodded gravely. "I do. Any facilities we could shut down have been shut down and moved to more secure locations. We've tripled security at the remaining facilities and rigged them to either destroy all research data or explode or both depending on the security breach. They'll have to be ghosts in order to get inside."

"Excellent. Any other news?"

"Aside from the fact that I've managed to convince some officials to put a massive bounty on Aran's head? No nothing else."

Allison raised an eyebrow. "How big of a bounty?"

Though one couldn't really tell, it seemed Veraza was grinning.

"100 million credits."

Even Leonard stopped sulking for a moment after hearing that number.

"That's the biggest price anyone's ever had on their head! There isn't a bounty hunter alive who wouldn't consider this hunt."

"Yes," Veraza nodded. "That amount should be enough to motivate just about every bounty hunter in the galaxies. But I've also extended certain offers to more well known bounty hunters, some of the best after Samus herself. Ironically enough, a few of them are faces Samus has encountered before."

"You mean that incident in the Tetra Galaxy? The supposed 'ultimate power?'"

"Exactly. The hunter Kanden eagerly accepted. I didn't even have to throw in any bonuses. Trace though, needed some convincing. I promised him he could have Samus's body and power armor if he killed her. On the chance he succeeds, we'll probably have to eliminate him. Weavel though, only said he'd contemplate my offer. The Diamont, Spire, wasn't interested at all. And as for Sylux…no one knows where to find him. And I'd prefer to use our resources to find Samus and XM-25."

Che Seda nodded. "Very good. But wasn't there another hunter during the Tetra incident? One of your species?"

The ice based Vhozon's demeanor instantly became glacial. "Yes, Noxus. I didn't bother approaching him."

"Why not?" Leonard chipped in. "We need every ounce of pressure we can put on XM-25."

"You really don't understand Vhozon do you? We are a species of law and order, at times nearly fanatical in our pursuits of justice. And Samus Aran has long been a beacon of justice in the galaxy. Noxus nor any of my brethren will kill her. Oh they may seek her out, maybe even fight her. But mostly, they'll just want answers from Samus, to hear her side of the story. And that will be more of a headache than we need."

Che Seda nodded in sympathy whereas Jonathan merely interlaced his fingers.

"We've gotten quite off topic it seems. Well done on making sure some of the more well known hunters go after Samus."

The Vhozon nodded in thanks. "There are more hunters that I approached, each with excellent reputations but I'll bore you with details later."

"Excellent. For now, we'll wait for our targets to show up. Probably at one of our secure research labs that's impossible for XM-25 to be aware of but even so, somehow, he knows. We may be able to figure out where he'll strike from if we figure out how he got off Daiban. And I have a feeling I know how we can do that. I've got teams of Serpents examining various luxury starliners for any pair of passengers or crew that suddenly go missing mid voyage. Odd are, those will be our targets."

Allison coughed to cover a chuckle. "Isn't that a bit too…showy and obvious of a getaway plan? XM-25 would be more subtle wouldn't he?"

Jonathan grinned. "That's one of the reasons I'm almost positive this was his method of escape. The other, is because XM-25 has lived on the run from us for almost his entire life. I trained him to be hard but even the hardest and coldest of assassins need downtime. At this point in his life, XM-25 takes his pleasures wherever he can get them. Were I in his position? I'd create a fake identity and take the honeymoon suite. Maybe even try to get into Samus' pants."

They all shared a laugh at that.

"Unfortunately," Jonathan continued. "There are several dozen starliners that took off from Daiban recently. I can't send teams onto all of them without spreading us thin. So for now, we'll just monitor and try to pinpoint our targets movements as well as possible."

"If that'll be all," Leonard said causally. "I just take my leave." His hologram faded.

"It appears this meeting is adjourned unless there is something else?"

Jonathan shook his head. "You'll know when I know."

With that, they all exited the meeting.

Back on his planet, Jonathan gently massaged his scars and looked at a map of the galaxy on his desk.

"Its only a matter of time. But for now, it's your move XM-25. Where will you strike first?"

Next to the map, sat an unfinished game of chess. Jonathan contemplated it for a moment before moving a knight into a position to take the enemy queen.

"Your move."


	8. Problem

Disclaimer: Still don't own Metroid. First, I'd like to take a moment to apologize for the long wait and assure you that this fic ain't dying anytime soon. Second, I would like to apologize that this is kinda a filler chapter. But more meat will be on the way I promise! Third I'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate! WHOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO! I this was my first fanfic that hit double digits in reviews! YES BABY! YES! Speaking of reviews I'd like to thank everybody for all the awesome reviews everybody has given me. I'd also like to thank Wraith 5 who's been enjoying this fic since day one and has been giving me lots of great reviews. . Thanks a lot man. : ) I'll be sure to keep cranking out the best chapters that I can manage. After all, this whole adventure has only just begun. So as always, please read, review and enjoy!

Exodus

In an instant and with a rush of adrenaline, Zade woke up as he always did, at what would be considered 5:45 a.m. planet side, expecting a gun in his face or a knife at his throat. And his body always reacted as if immanent death was standing right over him. His adrenaline fueled eyes scanned everything around him as quickly as they could, scanning the environment for anything that was a threat, instinctual fear heightening every sense.

And as was often the case, after finding no threat, he allowed himself to relax and take deep breaths until the adrenaline rush wore off.

_Makes me wonder how normal people wake up._ He wondered enviously. It was never really a good start of a day expecting to die as you just woke up. And it didn't help that despite all of his training, how getting up at the buttcrack of dawn was pretty much hardwired and beat into him since he was in the cradle, he was _still_ not really a morning person.

Granted, it was useful in enemy territory, but in a starliner? Even he had to admit it was a bit much.

With an inaudible groan, he lifted himself from the bed and made his way toward the bathroom. Consoling himself that at least he hadn't had any more dreams of _her _last night…

Samus by contrast, simply opened her eyes, took a brief look around and gracefully rolled out of the bed and calmly walked toward the bathroom.

Both Samus and Zade arrived at the rather spacious bathroom at the same time. And they were both mildly surprised to see the other one there.

"You always get up this early?" Zade half groaned half mumbled.

"What about you?" Samus asked preferring not to answer any questions.

"I haven't been able to sleep past 6:00 a.m. since I was born. It really sucks."

"One more thing," Samus said haltingly. "You do intend to put some pants on soon?" It somehow sounded more like an order than a question.

Zade groaned out loud and decided that it was too early in the morning to try to argue or annoy Samus. Begrudgingly, he went to one of his bags and threw on a fresh set of pants before returning to see Samus just finish washing her face.

"So are we almost at the jump point?" she asked.

"If I recall correctly, yes we should be there in a few hours. I'll have to check my armor's computer to get a more accurate idea. But we're still good."

Samus gave a noncommittal "hmmm" before going starting to brush her teeth.

After they both finished, Zade put the rest of his clothes on and Samus finished putting something on over her zero suit.

After that, the assassin quickly checked their position to the rendezvous point by using the gauntlet of his armor.

"Huh, we must be going a little faster than I thought. We've got about five hours before the rendezvous. So if you want to hit the gift shop or the pool I suggest you get crackin."

The bounty huntress regarded Zade. "Do you have any plans before we leave?"

" I was thinking about finding some hot, rich red head and charming her out of either her wallet, or out of as many pieces of clothing as I could manage."

Samus' expression couldn't have gotten more disdainful. "You'd do _that_ before a mission?"

"Hell yeah! Best way to relax there is. Or is that purity along with naiveté I smell on you?"

She cocked an eyebrow at that. "Naiveté?"

The assassin waved her off. "We'll get to that some other time. For now, do what you want but meet up at the rear obs deck in five hours. Have fun!"

Before Zade could leave though, Samus put a hand firmly on his shoulder.

"Actually," she said coolly. " My plan for the day was to ask you some more questions."

Zade's face broke into that annoying smirk. "So you wanna play 20 questions huh? Last time I played that game with a girl, neither one of us could walk straight for a week."

Samus ignored him. " I have some more questions about these 12. The info you gave me was interesting. Projects that get money from proxy sources and shell companies. Payments that didn't add up, things like that. But I need to know more."

"So much for the redhead," Zade sighed in defeat as he went over to the bed and sat crossed legged on it.

"What do you wanna know?"

"Everything. Everything that you know about them."

Zade's face actually lost its smirk and turned a bit somber.

"I'm afraid you're gonna be a bit disappointed…"

"Don't…"

"Because I don't know for sure," Zade finished grimly. "I was a homegrown assassin for these guys not a club member. The only thing I really knew about them were their targets. And it took a lot of ingenuity and outright luck to get that picture file that you saw. So I have faces, but no names. And trust me, I've tried pretty hard to get names. Closest I've gotten is just one first name. One of the humans in the group goes by the name of Leonard. Hehehe, gave him a lot of grief about a year ago. Almost ruined all of his finances. Good times."

"What _do_ you know then?"

Zade cracked his knuckles and stretched out his neck before settling into storytelling mode.

"I've got very few concrete things and a lot of theories ranging from plausible to stupid. The concrete things I have is that they are organized, rich, never ever touch things directly if they can help it. And their agenda seems to be control of the galaxy as they see fit. To that end, they employ a variety of secret projects through the Federation military. Such as the metroid warriors project and the study of the X parasite. As for how they managed to get their money and influence…" Zade shrugged.

"Well, that's where I go into theories. One theory I have is that they managed to steal a lot from trillion dollar industries and somehow make those industries keep quiet. Another is that they had ties to those industries like in their founding or something. Oh and my favorite theory is that they have their origins in the old Earth Illuminati."

"What are the Illuminati?" Samus asked.

"I don't know the exact historical details," Adam jumped in. "But by and large they were a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists. They were said to have ruled Earth from the shadows."  
"See why that's my favorite theory?" Zade added half jokingly. "Regardless, these 12 don't go by any fancy names like Free Masons or anything like that. And all I really know about them for sure is that they need to be taken down a notch. Preferably a notch that's six feet under. And that's all I really got on their origins and motives."

Samus wasn't completely convinced. "That's all?"

"One of the rules of being an assassin, babe. You don't give a crap for people's motivations. You just kill them, end of story."

A glare was rapidly becoming Samus' most used facial expression when talking with Zade.

"You can stop with the death glare you know. You don't like me, I get it. But you're just gonna give yourself wrinkles."

Evidently thinking that story time was over, Zade got up and poured himself a drink from the mini bar. "But like I told you before, they have power, money and influence and they think because they have those things, they have the right to control everything. And like all men and women with power, they want more of it and whatever plans they come up with probably have a way of reaching that goal."

Zade downed his drink in a single gulp. Wincing lightly as the liquid burned his throat. "What I said before about motives aside though, I did try to do some digging on that front in order to figure out how to find them. And lately, they've been devoting a lot of resources to what seem to be various sorts of super soldier projects. Why? Again, no clue. Nothing definite anyway. But it might help us find them."

Samus analyzed Zade in an attempt to find any trace that he was holding something back. Of course it was in vain, she just couldn't read the assassin, she was a warrior not an interrogation specialist.

So for now all she could do was nod and keep alert for anything suspicious. And continue to assume he was hiding something.

"We done yet? Because charming someone is not something that should be rushed. And what comes after the charming is definitely something that shouldn't be rushed. Well…most of the time at least," he finished with a slightly lewd smirk.

Quietly breathing a disgusted sigh, Samus got up and began going through her stuff again.

"Very well then. So where exactly are we meeting in five hours?"

Still wearing that smirk, Zade finished his glass and moved toward the door. "We'll meet in observational lounge 7 in about four and a half hours. Don't be late cause this bus waits for no one. See you then."

After he was gone, Samus did one final check of all the items in the room (even finding micro tracers in some of her clothing much to her annoyance) then decided to enjoy the bed for a little longer as she pondered recent events.

The extermination of the X Parasite, the discovery of cloned Metroids on the BSL station, her trial and now these recent revelations. A group of people pulling the strings of some of the most dangerous experiments the Federation has conducted. A group powerful enough to manipulate events on a galactic scale.

What were they thinking supporting such experiments? Trying to control Metroids or study the X was tantamount to suicide. Metroids were near invincible hunters capable of wiping out entire civilizations. And the X Parasite was an almost perfect predator with the ability to unleash untold horrors on people.

What good could come of such creatures? Did these 12 share the same ambitions that the Space Pirates did? Invincible super soldiers that they alone controlled? The only enemy that the Federation could conceivably be at war with in the near future was the Kriken Empire. But to her knowledge the Federation already had a superior military so who would these creatures be used on? The Federation's own people? But that didn't make sense if these 12 already for all intents and purposes ruled them.

There wasn't enough information to draw any solid conclusion. Perhaps as this mission got underway she would discover what motivated this group to such dangerous measures.

But she supposed in the end it didn't matter too much why they were doing this. They've crossed too many lines, endangered too many people too many times. They were a threat to the people of the galaxy and must be eliminated. That was all there really was to it.

Satisfied with at least that conclusion, she thought about the other recent developments. The warrant for her own arrest, something she never thought would happen in a million years. Actually being hunted by the Federation, the very people she had hunted for. It was times like this that she really despised cheap irony.

Dodging standard Federation forces wouldn't be a problem. But if the Federation decided to hire hunters to go after her, that could complicate things. And she knew several hunters who would gladly give their right arms for the chance to hunt her.

She ran down the list of possible hunters she could encounter.

Trace: a member of the Kriken race. Would love to bring her power suit back to his people. Specialized in long range combat.

Noxus:? A firm if not zealous believer in justice. She respected him a lot and vice versa. She might be able to avoid fighting him.

Sylux: There was no way in hell she could reason or avoid fighting him. Not that she would want to, he was very, very dangerous, some profiles suggested psychotic and obsessed with destroying the Federation.

She spent some time on the list, remembering other hunters she had encountered and their fighting methods. When she was sure she had finished with the list she still had almost four hours to burn.

"You've been quiet for awhile now Samus."

Startled out of her pondering, she quickly brought her mind back to the here and now.

"Just thinking about potential complications to this current mission. Hunters that the Federation may send after me."

"Hmmm," Adam grunted. "To be honest I'm more interested in the conspirators. I have a feeling Zade knows more than he's willing to tell us at this point, but short of waterboarding him I don't think he'll reveal anything else unless he deems us necessary for us to know."

Irritation flashed through Samus. "So we just let him string us along!?"

"For now, but we keep an eye out. Remember that. And if he tries to double cross us, then you take him down hard Samus."

She closed her eyes and nodded. Why did the man always have to be right? It irritated the hell out of her. "I'm going out for a bit Adam."

"Where to?"

"I think I'll actually go for a swim. Be alright by yourself for awhile?"

"Don't worry I'm pretty sure I can't make your Zero suit move around," a normal person wouldn't be able to tell from Adam's tone of voice but he was actually trying to be humorous.

"I'll be back in a bit Adam."

After striping her zero suit and hiding it in the room, she headed out to go for a swim and maybe grab some lunch.

Forgoing the rather ridiculously revealing bathing suit Zade had brought along for her luggage. She decided to buy one from the cruise liner's store.

The pool was rather large and downright opulent but for the moment it was mostly empty of people. A small boutique just outside of the room with a rather bored looking young woman attending it and Samus decided to give it a look. The young woman there was only too happy to have something to do and practically waited hand and foot for Samus, who wound up buying just a simple one-piece swimsuit that was almost as blue as an Earth Sky. Almost like her zero suit.

After being directed to the nearest changing room into the new suit, she made her way back to the pool, ignoring the stares that came her way and gracefully dived into the pool.

Samus was rather fond of swimming, so much so that it was a shame it wasn't something she got to do more often so she did her best to savor this occasion. Doing only a half a dozen laps before simply floating there with her face to the clear ceiling above her.

Looking out at the stars like that, it was almost like being suspended in zero gravity just her and the stars, no earthly bounds to trap her. Alone with the universe.

Of course, moments of tranquility are often brief and fleeting. And this moment's interruption came in the form of a young man performing a dive rather too close to her.

"Woo!" A sandy blonde youth shouted out as he shook the water from his eyes.

"Sorry 'bout that, didn't see you there."

Samus merely abandoned her relaxed pose and began to swim calmly back toward the edge of the pool.

"Hey wait up let me get you a drink or something…"

"Not interested," Samus said icily as she stepped out of the pool.

The youth for his part seemed rather put out that a hottie like that turned out to be an ice queen. With a grunt that sounded like some sort of "whatever" he went back to the bar to dry off and wait for another girl to do his no doubt patented "oops I didn't see you there," approach.

Her moment of relaxation ruined, Samus decided to change and see if she could track down Zade. Knowing him, a good place to start would be the casinos. A place to pick up women who were easily attracted to cash.

An hour later, she had to admit that Zade may have had a better way of blending in than she thought. You couldn't look anywhere without seeing some cocky hotshot schmoozing up with some ditz.

Abruptly, someone in back of her rudely slammed into her.

She was about to give him a piece of her mind when a familiar voice whispered "stuff's packed, we're leaving now."

And just like that the offender vanished into the crowd. Although she saw a rather angry looking red headed woman all but charge right past her as well. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it was fun to think that Zade had bit off more than he could chew and was now running because of it.

Without further ado, she made her way to the rendezvous point. Obs lounge 7.

When she arrived, Zade discreetly signaled her to follow him. He led her through a maintenance corridor with access to airlocks. Normally those were protected by high security, but Zade had already planned ahead for that and had hacked the security.

Several space-tight bags no doubt containing their luggage laid strewn about the floor.

"What kept you?"

Samus resisted the urge to whip around and strike Zade who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Instead she turned around calmly and regarded the assassin. Who was once again clad in his black armor albeit, this time with her zero suit draped around his arm.

"You gonna be needing this?" he asked holding out her suit.

She shook her head. "I can use my power suit without it."

"Thought so," he then put the suit into one of the bags.

"So why are we leaving right now? I thought we still had two hours to wait."

Zade didn't answer immediately as though wrestling with how much he should tell her.

"I'm waiting."

Finally he relented.

"My ship engaged an emergency autopilot protocol. A protocol that activates only when it's detected another ship. When that happens, the ship is programmed to immediately make its way closer to the starliner. So basically we're just going to be getting off of here sooner in order to make sure we avoid detection."

Samus frowned. Something didn't seem right, another ship out here? Directly in the path of a luxury starliner?

"What kind of ship is it?"

"Pardon?"

She narrowed her eyes. "What kind of ship did your sensors detect?"

"Can't say for certain, but from the configuration it's most likely they're just smugglers in the wrong place. Perhaps a hyperspace jump gone wrong or something."

Had Zade been someone she trusted, she would probably have left it at that. But she trusted her instincts above all else and they screamed at her that he was hiding something important.

"I want details on this ship."

Even in his armor, Zade seemed to give off an air of frustrated irritation as he tried to figure out how to get out of this latest mess.

Had he had more time he could have thrown Samus' suspicions off, but he didn't have time and doubtless, this was going to be unavoidable.

With a grunt of frustration, Zade altered the holographical display on his arm to show only a partial of the scan, he couldn't have his partner shooting him where he stood now could he?

Once the adjustments were made, he held out his hand and had his suit show a partial hologram of the vessel his ship had spotted.

Samus' eyes widened at the familiar if only partial picture of the vessel.

"My ship's computer says that there is a 22.5 percent chance that it's a space pirate ship. They may be coming for the starliner."

Without a word Samus willed her powersuit into existence, feeling the familiar embrace of metal and artificial muscle envelop her.

The transformation complete, she let her visor go opaque and then Zade was gazing into the impassive face of the legendary hunter…


End file.
